Act 3
False Perception in Twelfth Night
False Perception in Romeo and Juliet
Misconception of Love in Romeo and Juliet
Act 5
Misconceptions of Love in Twelfth Night
Questions
Summary of Twelfth Night Cont'd
Summary of Twelfth Night
Appearance Versus Reality is used to...
Appearance Versus Reality in the plays...
Act 2
Summary of Romeo and Juliet
Examples of Appearance Versus Reality
What is appearance versus reality?
Real World Examples:
Act 1
“[Love is] more than physical attraction. Infatuation focuses on the physical” (Cyprian).
Social Media
Advertisements
Cosmetics
Create False Perceptions Between the Characters
- Tybalt appears wanting to duel Romeo
- Romeo claims to love Tybalt and the Capulet family
- Mercutio sees this as dishonourable and battles him instead
- Mercutio dies causing Romeo to fight Tybalt killing him as well
- the Prince wants Romeo exiled
- Romeo spends the night with Juliet before he flees to Mantua
- Juliet's parents want her to marry Paris this week but Juliet refuses
- Capulet threatens to disown her so she pretends to agree
- Juliet seeks Friar Lawrence for help
“Holy Saint Francis! What a change here!/ Is Rosaline, that thou didn’t love so dear,/ So soon forsaken” (Romeo and Juliet II iii 68-70)?
“love can last a long time. It becomes deeper and more powerful over time. Infatuation is powerful, but short-lived” (Cyprian).
“Poor lady, she were better love a dream./ Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness” (Twelfth Night II iii 26-27).
"Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke...
This will allow me very worth his service."
(Twelfth Night I ii 53-59)
"Viola plays her part as a persistent ambassador of love too well... [she] succeeds in penetrating Olivia's various physical and emotional defences" (Burt)
Appearance: the external aspect of someone or something
Reality: the true state or situation that exists
"Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilling liquor drink thou off;
...Each part deprived of supple government
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear, like death"
(Romeo and Juliet IV i 95-105)
"the potion - or the comatose state it will induce - is intended to divert Juliet from 'death himself' ... But the likeness is so persuasive that the distinction becomes uncomfortably blurred" (Pollard)
- long feud between the Capulet and Montague families in the streets of Verona
- Romeo is in melancholy because he was rejected by Rosaline
- Capulet wants Paris to marry his daughter Juliet
- Romeo and Benvolio sneak into the Feast that is at Capulet's house
- Romeo sees Juliet and they both fall in love with eachother
- Both realize that the other is an enemy to their family
What are some examples of appearance versus reality seen in Shakespearean plays?
True or False:
1) The love triangle in Twelfth Night involves Viola loving Orsino, Orsino loving Olivia, and Olivia loving Sebastian.
2) The Capulet and the Montague families have been in a long feud
- Duke Orsino who is hopelessly in love with Olivia who does not love him back
- Olivia’s brother died so she is in great despair wishing to marry no one and to see no strangers
- on the Illyrian coast, Viola is rescued from a shipwreck while her twin brother, Sebastian, remains unseen
- Viola disguises herself as a man with the new name “Cesario” in order to be a servant for Duke Orsino
- Cesario soon becomes Orsino’s favourite servant and asks Cesario to send messages of love to Olivia for him because he is so young and handsome
- Viola ends up falling for Orsino and wishes to be his wife
- Cesario sends the messages to Olivia who ends up falling for Cesario instead
- creates a love triangle where Viola loves Orsino, Orsino loves Olivia and Olivia loves Cesario
- Romeo has been misinformed that Juliet is dead so he buys poison in order to kill himself
- Friar John couldn’t send the letter so Friar Lawrence realizes that he has to rescue Juliet on his own and keep her in his cell until Romeo arrives
- Romeo breaks into the vault while Paris was there
- Paris assumes that Romeo was here to violate the tomb so he fights Romeo but dies
- Romeo laments over Juliet’s body, drinks the poison and dies
- Juliet then wakes up to find Romeo and Paris dead
- Friar Lawrence tells her to hide in a nunnery but she refuses so Friar runs away while Juliet kisses Romeo and stabs herself to death
- The Prince, the Capulets and Montague who says that his wife died due to Romeo’s exile all enter
- Friar Lawrence then tells everyone the true story
- Sebastian is still alive but thinks his sister, Viola, is dead so he goes to Orsino with the protection from Antonio who is passionately in love with Sebastian
- Sir Andrew challenges Cesario to a battle because he is also attracted to Olivia, but Antonio tries to fight for him because he thinks that Cesario is Sebastian
- Antonio is then arrested by Orsino’s officers because they were old enemies leaving him to feel betrayed because Cesario denied knowing him
- Viola has newfound hope that Sebastian may be alive
- Olivia asks Sebastian to marry her and of course he says yes because he sees that she is beautiful and rich
- when Cesario and Orsino make their way to Olivia’s house, Olivia welcomes her new husband, making Orsino furious at Viola even though she knew nothing about this
- Sebastian then appears on the scene and everything is revealed
- Orsino then realizes that he loves Viola now that he knows she’s a man and they both get married
- Romeo overhears Juliet articulating her desire for Romeo and the problems of his family
- they profess their love for each other
- Romeo has to send instructions about their marriage to Juliet by tomorrow if he intends on marrying her
- Romeo gets Friar Lawrence to help plan their marriage because he thinks this marriage will end the feud between the families
- Benvolio reveals that Tybalt wrote Romeo a letter challenging Romeo to duel
- Romeo and Juliet get married in Friar Lawrence's cell
Shakespearean Examples:
Act 4
- Olivia cannot be in love with Cesario because he is only a disguise
- One cannot love someone who is not real
- love is not just the physical attraction one has for someone
- Olivia appears to love Cesario but she does not know who he is internally leaving her to be only infatuated
- she is using a disguise to trick Orsino into thinking she is a man worthy of delivering his love messages to Olivia
- Duke Orsino has a false perception of Viola thinking that she is a man
- Viola also tricks Olivia into thinking she is a man because she ends up falling for her
Identify the Character's Misconception of Love
- Romeo shows signs of infatuation by quickly forgetting about Rosaline even though he was melancholic after she rejected him
- he would always talk about his love for her and now it meant nothing after meeting Juliet
- shows that it appears he loved her, but in reality, it was just infatuation
- his love was brief and short-lived which are signs of infatuation
- the potion causes Juliet to have all the symptoms of death
- this realistic appearance of death makes it difficult for characters to distinguish her state from the truth
- the other characters perceive her as dead, but in reality she is still alive
Hamlet
Macbeth
"...That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain" (Hamlet I v 106-8)
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair" (Macbeth I i 12)
- what is good is bad, and what is bad is good
- the things that appear to be bad are actually good and vice versa
- Claudius appears to be an honest and trustworthy person, but in reality he is a spiteful villain
- smiles can make one appear kind and pleasant
- Claudius is using the smile to mask his corrupt and evil personality
- Friar Lawrence proposes a plan where Juliet drinks a poison that will put her in a deathlike coma the night before her wedding
- He will then tell Romeo to get Juliet from her tomb so that she can live with him in Mantua
- Juliet then takes the poison before she sleeps
- The Nurse tries to wake her up on her wedding day but realizes that she is “dead”
- Friar Lawrence then quickly organizes her funeral as plan
Clip of Sebastian and Viola Reuniting
Appearance Versus Reality in Shakespearean Plays