The Description of Figure Characteristic in William Shakespeare’s Drama Twelfth Night

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THE DESCRIPTION OF FIGURE CHARACTERISTIC IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S DRAMA TWELFTH NIGHT

A PAPER

WRITTEN BY

ROCKY GOKLAS S REG.NO: 112202034

DIPLOMA-III ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM FACULTY OF CULTURE STUDIES

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It has been proved by Supervisor,

NIP: 19511013197902 2 001

Dra. Syahyar Hanum, DPFE.

Submitted to Faculty of Cultural Study, University of Sumatera Utara in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for Diploma-III in English Study Program

Approved by

Head of English Diploma Study Program,

NIP: 19521126198112 1 001 Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, M.A.

Approved by the Diploma-III of English Study Program Faculty of Cultural

Study, University of Sumatera Utara as a Paper for the Diploma-III Examination.

Accepted by the Board of Examiner in partial of the requirements for the D-III

Examination of the Diploma-III of English Study Program, Faculty of Culture

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The Examination is held on June 2014

Faculty of Cultural Study University of Sumatera Utara

Dean,

NIP: 19511013197603 1 001 Dr. Syahron Lubis, MA

Board of Examiners:

1. Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, M.A. __________

2. Dra. Syahyar Hanum, DPFE. __________

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AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

I, ROCKY GOKLAS S, declare that I am the sole author of this paper. Except

where the reference is made in the text of this paper, this paper contains no

material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a paper by

which I have qualified for or awarded another degree.

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the

maintext of this paper. This paper has not been submitted for the award of another

degree in any tertiary education.

Signed :

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COPYRIGHT DECLARATION

Name : ROCKY GOKLAS S

Title of paper : THE DECRIPTION OF FIGURE CHARACTERISTIC

IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S DRAMA TWELFTH

NIGHT

Qualification : D-III/ Ahli Madya

Study Program : English

I am willing that my paper should be available for reproduction at the

reproduction at the discretion of the Librarian of the Diploma III English Faculty

of Culture University of North Sumatera the understanding that users are made

aware of their obligation under law of the Republic of Indonesia.

Signed :

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ABSTRACT

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ABSTRAK

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ACKNOWLEDMENTS

First of all, I would like to thank and praise to the Almighty God for

blessing and giving health, strength and ease to accomplish this paper as one of

the requirements to get the Diploma III certificate from English Study program

Faculty of culture study, University of Sumatera Utara.

I would like to express a deep gratitude, love, appreciation and thanks to

my lovely parents, Popar Simanjuntak, S.IP and Ratna Simamora.Thank you for all your supports, advices, prays, and loves. I present this paper for you.

Thank you Dr. Matius C.A. Sembiring, M.A. as the head of Diploma-III English Study Program, who gives me a lot of knowledge.

Thank you Dra. Syahyar Hanum, DPFE.as my supervisor. Thank you for the valuable time in giving me the correction and constructive critics in

completing this paper. You are my inspiration.

Thank you Dr. Syahron Lubis, M.A. as the Dean of Faculty of Culture Studies, University of Sumatera Utara.

Thanks for all lectures in Diploma-III English Study Program for giving

me valuable knowledge.

Thanks formy best friends in SOLIDASRumada Pane, M.Rezki Siregar, Bazzar Abid Harahap, Eka Wardhana, Febrilatussakdiyah Hrp, Dika Pratiwi, and Aviandani Aulia Nstfor your supports, care and other things that help me to complete this paper. Thank you for the nice friendship during our

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Thanks for my juniors in SOLIDAS 2013, Ruth Silviana Surbakti,

Dinda, Maria, Vio, and Marysfor nice friendship during my last year in University of Sumatera Utara.

Thanks for all my friends in SOLIDAS2011 and alumnus in SOLIDAS

for your kindness to me, I’m going to miss you all.

Medan, 2014

The writer

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Twelfth Night is a drama by William Shakespeare, believed to have been

written around 1601for the close of the Christmas season. The play centers on the

twins Viola andSebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. The play focuses on

the Countess Olivia falling in love with Viola who is disguised as a boy, and

Sebastian in turn falling in love with Olivia. The play expanded on the musical

interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion.

In this paper, the writer has chosen Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

as the subject of this paper. The writer is interested in describing the characteristic

of figures in the drama because all the main figures have different characteristic in

performing the drama. Perhaps the characteristic of the main figures still exist in

our real life. This drama is also interested to read since it contains comedy that

makes reader laughing.

A play or drama is one of classical literary form that has continued to

evolve over the years. It generally comprises chiefly dialogue between characters,

and usually aims at dramatic or theatrical performance rather than at reading.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, opera developed as a combination of poetry,

drama, and music. Nearly all drama took verse form until comparatively recently.

Shakespeare could be considered drama. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is a

classic romantic drama generally accepted as literature.

Edgar and Henry (1995:1) say that Literature refers to composition that tell

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ideas.Before the invasion of writing, literary works were necessarily spoken or

sung, and were retained only as long as living people performed them. They also

say that literature helps us grow, both personally an intellectually. It provides an

objective base for knowledge and understanding. It links us with the broader

cultural, philosophic, and religious world of which we are a part. It enables us to

recognize human dreams and struggles in different places and times that we would

never otherwise know. It helps us develop mature sensibility and compassion for

the condition of all living things like human, animal, and vegetable. It gives us the

knowledge and perception to appreciate the beauty of order and arrangement, just

as well-structured song or a beautifully painted canvas can.

About literature, Raymond (1982:2) says “if language is the most

advanced form of communication, literature maybe seen as a special use of

language, and perhaps as the highest use to which language can be put”. We do

not have to learn a new language in order to find the maximum appreciation of

literature. What we have to do is to develop new ways of receiving the language

and understanding what it is capable of doing. Literature, like the other arts, can

give us new ways of looking at the world and finding significance which the daily

use of language in its more common place way has concealed.

However, all of the ideas which have been described by the linguists have

relation each other, that literature generally is a mirror of human life that portrays

the human feeling, thought, imagination, and perception can be viewed based on

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Based on Robert and Jacob in their book about Literature: an introduction

to reading and writing (1995:2) say, “Literature is classified into four genres:

prose fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction prose.

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The

term comes from a Greek word meaning “action” which_{is derived from the verb}

meaning “to do” or “to act”. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed

by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of

production and a collective form of reception. The structure_{, unlike other forms}

of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective

reception.

Drama makes events and emotionscome to life before the eyes of the

audience. More than any other literary form, drama is visual experience. Whether

we read it or see it onstage, a play leaves pictures in our minds. These pictures,

along with the echoes of the characters’ words, create the emotions and ideas that

together make up that play’s themes (Judith, 1941:67)

Edgar and Henry say that drama is literature designed to be performed by

actors. Like fiction, drama focus on a single character or a small number of

characters, and it enacts fictional events as if they were happening in the present,

to be witnessed by an audience. Although most modern plays use prose dialogue,

in the belief that dramatic speech should be as lifelike as possible, many plays

from the past, like those of ancient Greece and Renaissance England, are in poetic

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1.2 Problem of the Study

Based on the background of the study, the problem of the study may be

recognized as follows:

1) How is the characteristic description of main figures in the drama?

2) Does the characteristic exist in our real life?

1.3 Scope of the Study

There are some basic elements in Drama that can be discussed; they are

plot, character, point of view, setting, language, tone, symbolism, and theme.

However, the writer is only focused on the characteristic of main figure and the

existence of the characteristic in our real life which is found in the drama.

1.4 Purpose of the Study

In writing this paper, the purpose of the study is to describe about the

characteristic of the main figure in Twelfth Night drama and to find out the

existence of the characteristic in our real life.

1.5 Method of the Study

The writer uses descriptive qualitative method. The first step is the writer

read and understood the story in Twelfth Night drama. Then writer read and

collected literary books especially books that relevant to the topic that can support

the analysis and as reference in finishing this paper. The writer also searched and

collected data from internet to enrich the data. Finally, the writer described and

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2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERARTURE

2.1 Drama

The word drama is derived from the Greek word dran, which means “to

do” or “to act,” and doing and acting have always been drama’s major

characteristics. Although the word sometimes refers to a single plays, it may also

refer to a group of playsor to all plays. A person who writes plays is dramatist or

playwright. (Playwright is a word combining play with wright).

2.1.1 Drama and Performance

The text of a play consists of dialogue, monologue, and stage directions.

Dialogue is the conversation of two or more characters. A monologue is spoken

by a single character that is usually alone on stage. Stage directions are the

playwright’s instructions about vocal expression, “body language,” stage

appearance, lighting, and similar matters.

Although drama shares many characteristics with fiction and poetry, the

most important difference is that plays are written to be presented by actors on a

stage before an audience. The actors perform the various actions and also mimic

or imitate the emotions of the major characters, in order to create a maximum

impact on the audience. It is performance that creates the movement, immediacy,

and excitement of drama.

2.1.2 Actors

Actors bring the characters and the dialogue to life—loving or hating,

strutting or cringing, shouting or whispering, laughing or crying, or inspiring or

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vocal quality and inflection, gestures, and facial expressions. They move about the

stage according to patterns called blocking. They also engage in stage business—

gestures or movements that keep the production active, dynamic, and often funny.

2.1.3 Costumes and Makeup

Actors also make the play vivid by wearing costumes and using makeup,

which help the audience understand the time period, occupation, mentality, and

social status of the characters. Costumes may be used realistically (a king in rich

robes, a salesman in a rumpled business suit) or symbolically (the use of black

clothing for a character suffering depression). Makeup usually enhances an actor’s

facial features, but it also may help fix the illusion of youth or age or emphasize a

character’s joy or sorrow.

2.1.4 The Director and Producer

In theater, all aspects of performance are controlled by the director, the

person who plans the production in association with the producer, who takes

responsibility for financing and arranging the physical aspects of the production.

The director tells the actors to move, speak, and act in ways that are consistent

with his or her vision of the play. When a play calls for special effects, as in

Molière’s love is the doctor, the director and producer work with specialists such

as musicians, choreographers, and sound technicians to enhance and enliven the

performance.

2.1.5 The Stage

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acting area that is surrounded by the audience). Regardless of the kind of stage,

the modern theater is likely to provide scenery and properties (or props), which

locate the action in place and time, and which underscore the ideas of the director.

The sets (the appurtenances for a particular scene) may change a number of times

during a performance, as in Hamlet, or a single set may be used throughout, as in

Oedipus the King.

2.1.6 Lighting

Today’s theater relies heavily on lighting. Until the seventeenth century,

however, lights were not used in the theater. Before then, plays were performed

during the day and under the sky, in inn yards and in courtyard-like theaters like

the Globe Theater, in which many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed.

Because open-air performances depended on favorable weather, plays were

eventually taken indoors, and theaters then relied on candles, and later gaslight,

for lighting effects (yes, some theaters burned down). The development of electric

lights in the late nineteenth century revolutionized dramatic productions. For

today’s performances, producer may use spotlights, filters, dimmers, and other

lighting technology to emphasize various parts of the stage, to shape the mood of

a scene, and to highlight individual characters. In productions of plays like The

Glass Menagerie and death of a Salesman, lighting is even used to indicate

changes in time or place.

2.1.7 The Audience

The audience plays a significant role in a theatrical performance. The

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and thus continually influence the delivery and pace of the performance.

Similarly, the audience, sitting together in a darkened auditorium, offers a

communal response to the play. Thus, drama in the theater is the most immediate

and accessible to the literary arts. There is no in prose fiction, and no speaker, as

in poetry.

The basic forms of drama are full-length plays and short plays, just as in

fiction the basic forms are novels and short stories. Full-length play, also

sometimes called regular plays, may consist of three, four, or five separate acts (A

Doll House, Hamlet), a long series of separate scenes (Oedipus the King and The

Glass Menagerie), or two long acts (Death of a Salesman). Such plays are

designed for a full performance of three or more hours (with intermissions); they

provide for complete and in-depth development of character, conflict, and idea.

Full-length plays containing separate acts, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, are

also subdivided. These subdivisions, or scenes, are not always noted in the text,

but often they are given formal scene numbers. Characteristic of scenes are a

coherent action, a unified setting, and a fixed group of characters, much like

sections and chapters in novels.

Short plays, usually consisting of one act, do not permit extensive

development and subdivision. They are not commercially self-sustaining unless

two or three of them are put together for an entire evening in the theater.

However, one-act plays may be used for studio and classroom performance, or,

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smoothly from beginning to end without a break. On the other hand, somewhat

longer short plays, like Love Is the Doctor and Am I blue, may contain formal

scene and act divisions. Love Is the Doctor is unique because it features French

scenes, in which a new scene begins each time a character enters or leaves the

stage.

2.2 Types of Drama

In our times we do not even have to go to the theater to have drama at our

fingertips. We can find virtually everything on the television screen. Some

representative samples are situation comedies, continuous narrative dramas

including soap operas, made-for-TV films, short skits on comedy shows, and

many other types. All these various genres ultimately spring from the drama that

was developed originally in ancient Greece twenty-five hundred years ago.

Although the centuries have produced many variations, the types the Greeks

created are still as important today as they were then. They are tragedy and

comedy.

2.2.1 Comedy

Comedy is a play written in a kindly or humorous, perhaps bitter or satiric

vein, in which the problems or difficulties of the characters are resolved

satisfactorily, if not for all characters, at least from the point of view of the

audience. Low characters as opposed to noble; characters not always changed by

the action of the play; based upon observation of life. Comedy and tragedy are

concerned more with character, whereas farce and melodrama are concerned more

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2.2.2 Tragedy

Tragedyis a play written in a serious, sometimes impressive or elevated

style, in which things go wrong and cannot be set right except at great cost or

sacrifice. Aristotle said that tragedy should purge our emotions by evoking pity

and fear (or compassion and awe) in us, the spectators.

2.3 Basic Elements of Drama

The basic elements of drama are plot, character, point of view, setting,

language, tone, symbolism, and theme or meaning. Poetic drama, such as

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and A Midsummer’s Dream, add poetic elements such as

meter and rhyme. All these elements have remained relatively constant throughout

the history of drama.

2.3.1 Plot and Conflict

Plot, in drama as in fiction, is an ordered chain of physical, emotional, or

intellectual events that ties the action together. It is a planned sequence of

interrelated actions that begins in a state of imbalance, grows out of conflict,

reaches a peak of complication, and resolves into some new situation. It is easy to

oversimplify the idea of plot in a play. Dramatic plots are often more complicated

than a single movement toward a single solution or resolution. Some plays have

double plots (two different but related lines of action going on at the same time).

Other plays offer a main plot, together with a subplot that comments, either

directly or indirectly, on the main plot. In A midsummer Night’s Dream, four

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The mainspring of plot in a play is conflict, which can be physical,

psychological, social, or all three. It can involve a character’s struggle against

another person, against the environment, or against himself or herself. Most

commonly, the conflict in a play is a combination of these general types. In

Albee’s The Sandbox, for example, Grandma is in conflict with her family,

society, and death. Similarly, the hero in Hamlet is in conflict with himself, his

enemy, and his society at the same time. Conflict in drama can be more explicit

than in prose fiction because we actually see the clash of wills and characters on

stage or on the page.

2.3.2 Character

A character is a person created by the playwright to carry the actions,

languages, ideas, and emotions of the play. Many of the types of characters that

populate prose fiction are also found in drama. In drama as in fiction, for example,

we find both round and flat characters. A round character, like Shakespeare’s

Hamlet and Ibsen’s Nora, undergoes a change or development as the play

progresses. On the other hand, a flat character, like Molière’s Lisette, is

undeveloped, even though she or he may be interesting, vital, and amusing. As in

fiction, dramatic characters can also be considered static (fixed and unchanging)

or dynamic (growing and developing).

Because drama, like fiction, depends on conflict, we also find protagonists

and antagonists in plays. The protagonist is usually the central character in the

action. The antagonist opposes the protagonist and is often a villain. A classic

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while his uncle King Claudius is the antagonist. The play develops as Hamlet the

protagonist tries first to confirm, and then to punish, the villainy of his uncle the

antagonist.

There are also characters that set off or highlight the protagonist, and other

who are peripheral. The first of these types, the foil, is somewhat like the

protagonist, but with contrasting qualities. In Hamlet, for example, both Laertes

and Fortinbras are foils to Hamlet. The second type, called a choric figure, is

rooted in the choruses of Greek tragedy, and is usually played by a single

character, often a friend or confidant of the protagonist, such as Horation in

Hamlet. If this type of character provides commentary about the play’s major

issues and actions, he or she is called a raisonneur (the French word meaning

reasoner) or commentator.

Dramatic character may be realistic, nonrealistic, symbolic, and

stereo-typed or stock. Realistic characters are normally accurate imitations of

individualized men and women; they are given background, personalities, desires,

motivations, and thoughts. Nonrealistic characters are usually stripped of such

individualizing touches and they are often undeveloped and symbolic. All of the

characters in The Sandbox are nonrealistic. Symbolic characters represent an idea,

a way of life, moral values, or some other abstraction. The two women in Tea

Party symbolize the agonized loneliness of old age, while Dr. Fillpocket in Love

is the Doctor symbolizes cynicism, greed, charlatanism, and the misuse of

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Stereotyped or stock characters have been used in drama throughout the

ages. In effect they serve as a shortcut in characterization. The general types

developed in classical and Renaissance drama are the bumpkin, the braggart, the

trickster, the victim, the stubborn father, the shrewish wife, the lusty youth, and

the prodigal son. Modern drama continues these stereotypes, and it has also

invented many of its own, such as the hardboiled detective, the loner cowboy, the

honest policeman, and the whore with a heart of gold.

The major difference between characters in fiction or poetry and

characters in drama is the way they are revealed. Playwrights do not have the

fiction writer’s freedom to describe a character directly. We therefore must listen

to the words of characters, watch and interpret their actions, heed what other

characters say about them, and observe what other characters do to them.

2.3.3 Point of View

Point of view in drama is strikingly different from the comparable element

in fiction and poetry. With the exception of works like Tennessee Williams’s The

Glass Menagerie, plays rarely have narrators, and it is difficult for a playwright to

sustain a perspective that is exclusively first person-protagonist or

third-person-omniscient. Instead, playwrights employ the dramatic point of view, whereby the

playwright gives us the objective raw materials (the actions and the words) but

arranges them in such a way that we ourselves must draw all the conclusions.

Within these limits, playwrights do have techniques to lead an audience to

see things from a specific character’s perspective. In O’Neill’s Before Breakfast,

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device is the soliloquy, in which a character reveals his or her thoughts directly to

the audience. In plays from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century, soliloquies are

common, and in the twentieth century, soliloquies have again become an

important element in experimental and nonrealistic drama. Another device, called

the aside, allows a character to address brief remarks to the audience which the

other characters do not hear.

2.3.4 Setting or Scenery

A play’s scenery or setting is what we first see on the stage, and it brings

the written directions to life through backdrops, furnishings, properties, and

lighting. The function of scenery is to establish plays in specific places and times

and also to determine the level of reality.

Like characters, the setting may be realistic or nonrealistic. A realistic

setting requires extensive construction and properties, for the object is to create as

lifelike a stage as possible. In Trifles, for example, the setting is a realistic copy of

an early twentieth-century Midwestern farm kitchen. A nonrealistic setting is

nonrepresentational and often symbolic, as in The Sandbox, where the scenery

consists of a sandbox and a number of chairs. Often such scenery is produced in a

unit setsuch asa series of platforms, rooms, stairs, and exits that form the locations

for all the play’s actions, as in Death of a Salesman.

Generally, one-act plays rely on a single setting and a short imagined time

of action, as with The Bear, Trifles, Tea Party, and Before Breakfast. Many

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imagined time before the royal palace in ancient Thebes. Other longer plays may

extend imagined time while being set in the same location, as in The Glass

Menagerie, in which all the action takes place, in a rather long imagined time, in

the apartment home of the Wingfields. Some full-length plays change setting

frequently just as they also stretch out imagined time. Hamlet takes place in a

number of different locations, including battlements, a throne room, bed

chambers, castle halls, and a graveyard.

2.3.5 Dictionary, Imagery, Style, and Language

Most of what we learn about characters, relationships, and conflict is

conveyed through dramatic language. Characters tell us what they think, hope,

fear, and desire. Their dialogue may reflect the details of their daily lives or their

deepest thoughts about life and death. Their words must fit the circumstances, the

time, and the place of the play. Thus it would be as wrong for Miller’s Willy

Loman to speak in Elizabethan blank verse as it would be for Shakespeare’s

Hamlet to speak in modern American English.

The words and rhetorical devices of a play delineate character, emotion,

and theme, much as they do in fiction and poetry. Dramatists may employ words

that have wide-ranging connotations or that acquire many layers of meaning. Such

is the case with the words trifle and knot in Glaspell’s play Trifles. Similarly,

playwrights may have their characters speak in similes or metaphors that

contribute significantly to the play’s meaning and impact. Again in Trifles, one of

the characters compares another to a bird, and this simile grows to become one of

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Dramatists may also employ accents, dialects, idiom, jargon, and cliché to

indicate character traits. The characters in The Sandbox, for example, speak in

cliché that mark their limitations and shortcomings. The gravedigger in Hamlet

speaks in an Elizabethan dialect which distinguishes him from the aristocratic

persons in the play. Most of the characters in The Glass menagerie speak in

dialect, complete with slang expressions, that locates them in the Southern United

States.

2.3.6 Tone and Atmosphere

Tonein drama, as in fiction and poetry, signifies the way moods and

attitudes are created and presented. In plays, tone may be conveyed directly to the

spectator through voice and through the stage gestures that accompany dialogue,

such as rolling one’s eyes, throwing up one’s hands, shaking one’s head, jumping

for joy, and staggering in grief. Even silence can be an effective device for

creating tone and mood.

Whereas voice and movement establish tone on the stage, we have no such

exacting guides while reading a play. Sometimes a playwright indicates the tone

of specific lines through stage directions. In The Sandbox, for example, Albee

prefaces many speeches with directions such as whining, vaguely, impatiently, and

mocking. These cues to tone are intended for the actors, but they also help readers.

When such directions are lacking, the diction, tempo, imagery, and context all

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2.3.7 Symbolism and Allegory

In drama, as in fiction and poetry, the meaning of symbolsextends beyond

the apparent meaning of the symbol itself. Dramatic symbols, which may be

characters, settings, objects, actions, situations, or statements, may be both

universal and private. Cultural or universal symbolssuch as crosses, flags, snakes,

flowers are generally understood by the audience or reader regardless of the

context in which their appear. In act V of Hamlet, for example, we recognize

Yorick’s skull as a symbol of death. Contextual or private symbols develop their

impact only within the context of a specific play or even a particular scene. We

often don’t realize at first that such objects or actions are symbolic; they acquire

symbolic meaning only through context and continued action. The Sandbox, for

example, opens with a “large child’s sandbox with a toy pail and shovel” on stage.

Initially, these objects seem to have little significance. As the play goes on,

however, we realize that the sandbox symbolize a lifetime of ease, advancing

senility, the waste products of life, and, finally, death and the grave.

2.3.8 Subject and Theme

Although most playwrights do not seek primarily to persuade or

propagandize their audience, they do write their plays to dramatize ideas about the

human condition. The aspects of humanity a playwright explores constitute the

play’s subject. Plays may be about love, religion, hatred, war, ambition, death,

envy, or anything else that is part of the human condition.

The ideas that the play dramatizes about its subject make up the play’s

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way or that marriage may be destructive, that pride always lead to disaster, or that

grief can be conquered through strength and commitment to life. The theme is the

end result of all the other elements of drama, and for this reason it is often difficult

to isolate and identify. Even short plays may have complex themes, as in

Molière’s Love Is the Doctor, which farcically explores the themes that freedom

seeks way out of suppression, that love is one of the most powerfully inventive

human emotions, and that deceit is thoroughly infused within the human spirit and

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3. THE CHARACTERISTIC DESCRIPTION

3.1 Orsino

Orsino is basically characterized by the first line that he utters "If music be

the food of love, play on". He is the most melancholy characters that Shakespeare

ever created. His entire opening speech is filled with words such as “excess,”

“surfeiting,” “appetite,” “sickening,” and “dying fall,” words which show Orsino

to be sentimentally in love with love. He has seen Olivia, and the very sight of her

has fascinated him to such an extent that his romantic imagination convinces him

that he will perish if she does not consent to be his wife. Thus, this romantic,

melancholy indulgence is the crux of the play because the duke uses Cesario

(Viola) as his emissary to court Olivia.

If music be the food of love, play on Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

(Act 1, scene 1)

Orsino, however, is as changeable as the "sea" and as inconsistent as "an

opal in the sunlight." His languid craving for music is equated by his languid

reclining upon an opulent couch and his requesting attention, and then suddenly

becoming bored by what he has just requested. It is, however, Orsino's changeable

nature which allows us to believe that he can immediately switch his love for

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According to Olivia and others, Orsino is a perfect gentleman. He is

handsome, brave, courtly, virtuous, noble, wealthy, gracious, loyal and devoted.

In short, he is everything a young lady could wish for in a husband. This is

ultimately what makes it believable that Viola does fall in love with him

immediately.

3.2 Olivia

Olivia is a beautiful woman with strong emotional reactions and no male

guidance. She is not married and no longer has a father or brother. Several of the

men in the play feel Olivia needs a man to help her manage her life and fortune,

but she is too overcome with emotions to give them a chance at pursuing her.

At times, Olivia can be emotional and dramatic. Olivia mourns the recent

loss of her brother. Instead of expressing interest in others she drowns herself in

her sorrows. She mourns in a dramatic way by dressing in black. When she

cries, her tears are compared to 'a brine' that 'seasons' her 'brother's dead love.'

So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years hence, Shall not behold her face at ample view; But like a cloistress she will veiled walk, And water once a day her chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this to season

A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh And lasting, in her sad remembrance

(Act 1, scene 1)

At times it seems that Olivia uses her grief as a way to ignore the

advances of men (such as Orsino) who desire her affection. It is not until Olivia

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him attractive. She states, 'they tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit. Do

give thee five-fold blazon.

‘What is your parentage?’

‘above my fortunes, yet my state is well: I am a gentleman’. I’ll be sworn thou art:

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast: soft, soft! Unless the master were the man. – How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be. What, ho, Malvolio!

(Act 1, Scene 5)

Olivia is also determined to get what she wants. Instead of waiting for

Cesario to pursue her, Olivia pursues him. She proposes to the man she believes

is Cesario despite traditional Elizabethan custom, which states that women are to

be silent and to be pursued by a man.

Olivia obsesses over her love for Cesario until she learns Cesario is

really a woman and then she falls in love with a man named Sebastian, who is Viola's twin brother. Once Olivia gets over her grief and stops being obsessive

about her emotions, she is able to fall in love.

3.3 Viola

Viola is one of the most delightful and beloved figure from the play.

Surrounded by characters who express the extremes of emotionalism and

melancholy because she is caught between Orsino's extreme melancholy and

Olivia's aggressive emotionalism, yet she represents the norm of behavior in this

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As a shipwrecked who has no one to protect her, she must resort to some

means whereby her safety is assured. She knows that a single woman unattended

in a foreign land would be in an extremely dangerous position. Consequently, she

evaluates the sea captain's character, finds it suitable, and wisely places her trust

in him, then she disguises herself as a boy so that she will be safe and have a

man's freedom to move about without protection. Consequently, Viola is

immediately seen to be quick-witted enough to evaluate and to recognize the

captain's integrity, resourceful enough to conceive of the disguise, and practical

enough to carry out this design.

Viola also has a native intelligence, an engaging wit, and an immense

amount of charm. These qualities will help her obtain her position with Duke

Orsino, and they are also the same qualities which cause Lady Olivia to

immediately fall in love with her. It was her charming personality, we should

remember, which won her the sea captain's loyalty, without whose help her

disguise would have never succeeded. And within a short three days' time, her wit,

charm, loyalty, and her skill in music and conversation won for her the complete

trust of Duke Orsino. Although she is in love with the duke, she is loyal in her

missions when she tries to win Lady Olivia's love for him.

Viola's charm lies in her simple, straightforward, good-humored

personality. She could have used her disguise for all sorts of conniving, yet she is

forthright and honest in all of her dealings with Lady Olivia and with Duke

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possession of so many attributes falls in love with someone who is as moody and

changeable as Orsino.

3.4 Sebastian

Sebastian is Viola's twin brother who has been lost at sea. He is separated

from Viola at but survives the shipwreck by clinging to the ship's mast.

Eventually, he is fished out of the ocean by a sailor, Antonio, who falls in love

with him.

We don't see much of Sebastian in the play, but his character is significant

in Twelfth Night. Once Sebastian travels to Illyria, he's mistaken by all for

"Cesario" and quickly hooks up with Olivia. Sebastian's unlikely marriage to

Olivia allows her to redirect her desire for "Cesario" into a sanctioned

heterosexual relationship. As we've seen before, Twelfth Night is a comedy and, as

such, it works its way toward marriage and the reunification of families.

Sebastian clearly has a close relationship with Antonio, who may or may

not be a lover. In this way, Sebastian's relationship allows the play to study,

briefly, the erotic of male bonds.Antonio's relationship with Sebastian recalls

of

male friendship are explored in much more depth and detail.

3.5 Malvolio

Malvolio is the steward to Lady Olivia. He's a big time hater and criticizes

just about everything such as Toby's partying lifestyle, Feste's licensed fooling,

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gets when he's duped into behaving like a "madman" to win the favor of Lady

Olivia.

Maria says that sometimes Malvolio is a kind of puritan, which aligns him

with the religious group despised for its opposition to the theater, winter festivals,

and other forms of entertainment. Malvolio's not a Puritan, but the fact that the

play aligns him with the sect and goes out of its way to stage his humiliation

makes Malvolio's disgrace an important part of the play's rebellious,

nose-thumbing spirit.

Puritans were also accused of being power hungry and Malvolio's secret

social ambitions fit the bill. When we catch Malvolio daydreaming about

marrying Countess Olivia, we learn that his desire has less to do with love than it

has to do with his aspirations for social power. Malvolio seems to be punished as

much for his moral haughtiness as for his social climbing fantasies, which makes

him central to the play's concern with the dangers of social ambition.

Audiences often find Malvolio to be a sympathetic figure. Sure, he's

annoying and he gets what he deserves when Toby and his friends lock him up in

a dark room and perform a mock exorcism, but Malvolio's circumstances make us

uncomfortably aware of the sheer cruelty of treating a person like a madman for a

few laughs. In fact, the play raises the point that the trick is like a bear-baiting, an

Elizabethan blood-sport that involved chaining a bear to a post and setting a pack

of dogs on it. In this sense, Malvolio's punishment is a bit like what happens

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4. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

4.1 Conclusion

After describing the characters of Twelfth Night in this paper, it can be

concluded that characters is one of important elements in drama besides Theme,

Plot, Point of View, Setting, Language, Tone, and Symbolism.

Characters are the persons of presented in works of narrative who convey

their personal qualities through dialogues and action by which the reader or

audience understand their through, feelings, intentions, and motives.

Characters can affect the reader and give positive or negative impacts.

They may learn and be better from the experience or may miss the point and be

unchanged.

In Twelfth Night, there are five main characters. They are Orsino, Olivia,

Viola, Sebastian, and Malvolio.Twelfth Night is a drama with the theme of love. It

tells that love can be a cause of suffering. William Shakespeare, author of the

drama was an English

writer in the

By doing hard efforts and working hard in understanding the topic

discussion, the writer has been able to complete this paper as one of the

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4.2 Suggestion

At the end of this paper, the writer hopes that this paper will make the

readers understand more about characters in Twelfth Night and will be interested

in watching the Drama.

This paper can give a clear explanation about characterization to the

readers. This paper also can be used as guidance to the other students in

describing drama, especially the main characters. The writer hopes that other

students can study other elements of literary works: Theme, Plot, Point of View,

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REFERENCES

Allshop and Hunt. 1967. Using Better English, book 5. Australia: Bridge Printer PTY LTD

Baker, S., Peter. 2007. Introduction to Old English. Australia: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Chapman, Raymond. 1982. The Language of English Literature. London: EdwardArnold Ltd.

Edgar and Henry.1995. Literature, an Introduction to Reading and Writing.

United States of America: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Gill, Richard. 1985. Mastering English Literature. London: Macmillan Education LTD.

Moleong, lexy, j. 1993. Metodologi penelitian Kualitatif. Bandung: Remaja Rosdakarya.

Peck, John, and Martin Coyle. 1984. Literary Term and Critism. London: Macmillan Education LTD.

Purba , Parlindungan.2010. Writing Steps for Diploma. Medan.

Sembiring, Matius C.A. 2014. Buku Pedoman Program D-3 Studi Bahasa inggris. Medan: University of Sumatera Utara

Shakespeare, William. 1993. Twelfth Night. London: Wordsworth Classics Ltd

Stanford, A. Judith. 1941. Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems, Plays, andEssays. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Suryabrata, Smadi. 2002. Metode Penelitian. Jakarta: Raja Grapindo Persada.

Taylor, Richard. 1981. Understanding the Element of Literature. Hong Kong: Macmillan Company

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APPENDICES

SUMMARRY OF THE DRAMA

In the kingdom of Illyria, a nobleman named Orsino lies around listening

to music, pining away for the love of Lady Olivia. He cannot have her because she

is in mourning for her dead brother and refuses to entertain any proposals of

marriage. Meanwhile, off the coast, a storm has caused a terrible shipwreck. A

young, aristocratic-born woman named Viola is swept onto the Illyrian shore.

Finding herself alone in a strange land, she assumes that her twin brother,

Sebastian, has been drowned in the wreck, and tries to figure out what sort of

work she can do. A friendly sea captain tells her about Orsino’s courtship of

Olivia, and Viola says that she wishes she could go to work in Olivia’s home. But

since Lady Olivia refuses to talk with any strangers, Viola decides that she cannot

look for work with her. Instead, she decides to disguise herself as a man, taking on

the name of Cesario, and goes to work in the household of Duke Orsino.

Viola or Cesario quickly becomes a favorite of Orsino, who makes Cesario

his page. Viola finds herself falling in love with Orsino a difficult love to pursue,

as Orsino believes her to be a man. But when Orsino sends Cesario to deliver

Orsino’s love messages to the disdainful Olivia, Olivia herself falls for the

beautiful young Cesario, believing her to be a man. The love triangle is complete:

Viola loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia, and Olivia loves Cesario and everyone is

miserable.

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trying in his hopeless way to court Olivia; Olivia’s witty and pretty

waiting-gentlewoman, Maria; Feste, the clever clown of the house; and Malvolio, the

dour, prudish steward of Olivia’s household. When Sir Toby and the others take

offense at Malvolio’s constant efforts to spoil their fun, Maria engineers a

practical joke to make Malvolio think that Olivia is in love with him. She forges a

letter, supposedly from Olivia, addressed to her beloved, telling him that if he

wants to earn her favor, he should dress in yellow stockings and crossed garters,

act haughtily, smile constantly, and refuse to explain himself to anyone. Malvolio

finds the letter, assumes that it is addressed to him, and, filled with dreams of

marrying Olivia and becoming noble himself, and happily follows its commands.

He behaves so strangely that Olivia comes to think that he is mad.

Meanwhile, Sebastian, who is still alive after all but believes his sister

Viola to be dead, arrives in Illyria along with his friend and protector, Antonio.

Antonio has cared for Sebastian since the shipwreck and is passionately attached

to the young man so much so that he follows him to Orsino’s domain, in spite of

the fact that he and Orsino are old enemies.

Sir Andrew, observing Olivia’s attraction to Cesario, challenges Cesario to

a duel. Sir Toby, who sees the prospective duel as entertaining fun, eggs Sir

Andrew on. However, when Sebastian who looks just like the disguised Viola

appears on the scene, Sir Andrew and Sir Toby end up coming to blows with

Sebastian, thinking that he is Cesario. Olivia enters amid the confusion.

Encountering Sebastian and thinking that he is Cesario, she asks him to marry her.

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wealthy and beautiful, and he is therefore more than willing to go along with her.

Meanwhile, Antonio has been arrested by Orsino’s officers and now begs Cesario

for help, mistaking him for Sebastian. Viola denies knowing Antonio, and

Antonio is dragged off, crying out that Sebastian has betrayed him. Suddenly,

Viola has newfound hope that her brother may be alive.

Malvolio’s supposed madness has allowed the gleeful Maria, Toby, and

the rest to lock Malvolio into a small, dark room for his treatment, and they

torment him at will. Feste dresses up as "Sir Topas," a priest, and pretends to

examine Malvolio, declaring him definitely insane in spite of his protests.

However, Sir Toby begins to think better of the joke, and they allow Malvolio to

send a letter to Olivia, in which he asks to be released.

Eventually, Viola and Orsino make their way to Olivia’s house, where

Olivia welcomes Cesario as her new husband, thinking him to be Sebastian,

whom she has just married. Orsino is furious, but then Sebastian himself appears

on the scene, and all is revealed. The siblings are joyfully reunited, and Orsino

realizes that he loves Viola, now that he knows she is a woman, and asks her to

marry him. Finally, someone remembers Malvolio and lets him out of the dark

room. The trick is revealed in full, and the embittered Malvolio storms off,

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BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564) – 23 April 1616) was an

English

the

England's

some

plays have been translated into every major

more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in

of 18, he married

and twins

career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a

the

retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few

records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable

speculation about such matters as

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Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and

1613. His early plays were mainly

regarded as some the best work produced in these genres even today. He then

wrote mainly

a

last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as

with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and

accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623,

friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the

edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now

recognized as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by

which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time."

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his

reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The

in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the

Shakespeare with a reverence that

the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new

movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular

today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural

The Description of Figure Characteristic in William Shakespeare’s Drama Twelfth Night

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.

INTRODUCTION

2.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERARTURE

3.

THE CHARACTERISTIC DESCRIPTION

4.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR