Twelfth Night Act 1 scene 2

Similar to The Taming of the Shrew disguise is a central theme of Twelfth Night. Viola was recently in a shipwreck , which landed herself on llyria and she wishes to be a servant of Olivia. I believe she wants to work for her because it is a way for her to escape and blend into the new town she is in until she wants to properly identify herself. This will not work because Olivia will not see anyone. It seems that Viola wants to be the Duke’s servant but as a disguise of a man. She tells the captain her plan and wants him to play along with the idea. Music seems important to the Duke and Viola says “It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing and speak to him in many sorts of music”. This basically is saying she will sing to him and talk about music. The idea is that she will sicken him with too much music until he does not care about love anymore. Viola says she wants to be disguised as a servant or a eunuch. I believe Viola is pretending to be her brother’s identity because he died in the shipwreck. It is a little confusing why exactly Viola wants to become a man because it seems straight forwardly it is to hide her identity and get a job as the Duke’s servant. She may feel scared and alone since she randomly came upon llyria and may think she will be safer since men are strong seen as safeguards. I think Viola is vulnerable and does not want to portray herself as that. I also think she is emotionally ‘not there’ since she just went through a traumatic shipwreck and losing her brother. I think this will be an important aspect that will be uncovered as Twelfth Night unravels. I think there will be gendered related issues since Viola is dressing up as a man.