972 shakespeare, William
she asks the surviving sailors what chance they think
there is that her brother also survived: “Perchance he
is not drown’d: what think you sailors?” (1.2.5). The
captain’s response implies that although Sebastian’s
chances are slim, they are no slimmer than Viola’s
were. “It is perchance that you yourself were saved,”
he tells Viola, who appears to take comfort, saying,
“O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be”
(1.2.6–7). The captain goes on to confirm Viola’s
hope for her brother’s survival and relates that when
he last saw Sebastian, the youth, “most provident in
peril,” had had the good “chance” to grab hold of a
mast and keep himself above water (1.2.12).
The conversation between Viola and the captain
indicates the extent to which fate—or “chance,” as it
is called here—is responsible for events that happen
to them. Viola further admits the controlling power
of fate over her life’s events when, after disguising
herself as Cesario and entering the service of Duke
Orsino in the hope of gaining his affection, she
resigns the final outcomes of her plan to fate, saying,
“What else may hap to time I will commit” (1.2.60).
Viola’s brother, Sebastian, expresses the same
resignation to fate’s control over events when he
arrives in Illyria himself. Sebastian takes the ship-
wreck as a sign that has determined matters against
him, and he begs Antonio, the captain who has
rescued him, to leave him alone, lest his ill fortune
bring Antonio to harm, too. Sebastian laments,
“My stars shine darkly over me: the malignancy of
my fate might perhaps distemper yours: therefore I
shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils
alone: it were a bad recompense for your love, to lay
any of them on you” (2.1.3–8).
Matters appear to get worse for Viola when she
has the misfortune of falling in love with Duke
Orsino, whom she is prevented from wooing by her
gendered disguise and his love for Olivia. Her situa-
tion is further tangled when Olivia falls in love with
Viola’s alter ego, Cesario. When Viola realizes that
Olivia has fallen in love with her, she again resigns
herself to fate for the unraveling of the tangle that
she is in, since she can see no way out of it herself:
O time! thou must untangle this, not I:
It is too hard a knot for me to untie.
(2.2.41–42)Viola is not the only one perplexed by her fate in
this matter. Olivia herself seems to realize the dif-
ficulty of her desire for Orsino’s manservant. After
“Cesario” leaves her company, she blames fate for
her unfortunate desire and begs it to decree for her
a resolution:I do I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
Fate, show thy force, ourselves we do not
owe;
What is decreed must be, and be this so.
(2.1.327–330)Like Viola and Sebastian, Olivia acknowledges
that she is powerless to contradict the decree of fate
and resigns herself to await the outcome of events
that are beyond her control. Indeed, the comic plot
in Twelfth Night is finally resolved completely inde-
pendent of the wishes of the protagonists. Olivia
fortunately marries Sebastian by mistake, thinking
him to be Cesario. This marriage and the ensu-
ing chance revelation of Viola’s disguise when she
and Sebastian finally meet in act 5 paves the way
for a fortunate untangling of the love triangle, a
triple wedding, and a way for Sebastian and Viola
to regain their fortunes through marriage to Olivia
and Orsino. All of this occurs at the whim of fate,
which in Twelfth Night allows for the serendipitous
resolution of the protagonists’ apparent misfortunes.
Cory L. GrewellreJectIon in Twelfth Night
The feeling of rejection that comes from unrequited
love—love that is not returned by the beloved—is
experienced by all three members of the love triangle
that forms the basis of the romantic plot in Shake-
speare’s Twelfth Night. The theme of unrequited
love is a typical theme in English Renaissance
poetry, and in this play Shakespeare explores the
feelings of rejection that accompany it.
Orsino, the duke of Illyria, is in love with Olivia,
who refuses his love because she is mourning the
recent death of her brother and claims that she
therefore cannot love. When the play opens, the
audience finds Orsino lamenting his own grief and
feelings of rejection. He wishes to purge his feel-