FESTE

In the Elizabethan period, the stage fool primarily provided coarse humour for the groundlings. Such a Fool
is rarely more than a clown. Half-wittedness, deformity and abnormality, seem to have been the usual
qualifications for the Fools of the Elizabethan theatre. Shakespeare’s clowns, on the other hand, are fools
only in dress which is why Feste is made to say that he wears not motley in the brain. Neville Coghill
opines, “Shakespeare lifted the whole company of such fools out of the slough of imbecility; his jesters
have wit and pithiness; they can dance and sing and extemporize; their presence has point. It seems to say
'as, in the midst of life, we are in death, so in the midst of sanity, we are in folly'”.
So while Shakespeare's clowns do all the conventional things expected of them, they also have the function
of offering observations and criticism of the comic characters. So fools like Feste or Touchstone are also
critic and philosopher. They use the license of motley to expose, mock, ridicule and correct folly, thus
acting as the comic dramatist’s mouthpiece. D.J. Palmer commented on the 'wise fool' – “His part in society
is to shed the light of reality and common sense upon its fanciful figures and diversions.” But the fool, no
matter how wise, is powerless to enforce his view. He cannot change the world or people. In this regard,
Feste represents the pathos of the wise man who will not be taken seriously by a world of fools.
However, Touchstone is a shallower, or at least a less complex character than Feste; he is the jester of
prepared witticisms, the raconteur with a repertory. Feste does not seem to reply on set-pieces, but on
extemporal wit; he has a repertory not of jokes, but of songs. He is a great reader of character; the first
service he does for the audience in this regard is to make them realize that the Countess’ “mourning” for
her brother is simply a mask she has assumed, in order to keep the Duke Orsino at arm’s length. Not only
does Feste perceive this, but he thinks the best way to get back into her favour is to tease her about the
very man for whom she is so ostentatiously in grief –
“The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool,
gentlemen.”
Feste does all that is expected of a professional jester, but the most memorable are the songs that he
sings. His range of song not only shows his versatility but also his perceptive reading of character. His songs
are always chosen to suit his audience. He also entertains with words as he is a master of language and
repartee, of pun and verbal thrust, and of dexterous word-play. As he puts it, he is not Olivia's fool but her
“corrupter of words”. Unlike, the “natural” fool who tries to impress others through his language but is
ultimately overcome by it, causing his witlessness to lead to malapropism, Feste, the professional fool, is a
master of language and consequently, he is also the master of the play. His way with words allows him to
voice his opinions of the others characters without fear of retribution.
While his prowess at word-play may amuse us, it also alerts us to his sharp intelligence for there is always a
point to his play with words. Indeed, he wears not motley in his brain which is why he can distinguish
between a witty fool and a foolish wit. He is qualified to comment, criticise, and philosophise to show that
in the bubble world of Illyria “nothing that is so is so.” Shakespeare insists upon Feste’s wisdom to
empower his role in this comedy and so that he can act as a foil to the other characters. The wiser Feste is,
the more qualified he is to criticize the other characters for he can see where wisdom lies and where folly
lies. Feste’s palpable intelligence is an integral part of his role also because he uses it to communicate the
subtext of Shakespeare’s complicated plot to both, the characters as well as the audience.
Perhaps it is because Feste’s intellect is so bountiful that he is taken beyond the role of simply a character.
Through it he acquires the role of a somewhat omniscient narrator, infesting both the audience and the
other characters with a heightened awareness of what is happening around and within them. This is shown
during a conversation with Viola where, as thanks for a coin, Feste states, “Now Jove, in his next
commodity of hair, send thee a beard.” This might possibly imply his awareness of her disguise, both to the
audience and to Viola herself.
Feste is a special fool because while his jokes might not always induce rip-roaring laughter, his jesting
always has a point, sometimes mellow, sometimes trenchant. He has a refinement not associated with
fools. It is evident that he is both educated and well-read. We learn that he had ambitions of joining the
church. So like a priest, he catechized both Olivia and Malvolio. And yet, he can also be crass when he sings
Cozier's catches and pops ginger in the mouth and matches Toby drink for drink. He has the quality of a
complex character for he cannot be put into a box. He is a wise fool but sometimes his behaviour is very
human. He is ready to carouse late into the night, and partake of drunken revelry. If so wise, why does he
treat Malvolio as he does in Act IV, Scene II, mocking him with song and then cruelly reminding him that
“the whirlgig of time brings in his revenge’s”, which prompts Coghill to call him a “malicious grudge-
bearer.”
So Feste not only has an inordinately prominent part in the play but also is inordinately complex, and
therefore, tantalizingly elusive. He allows Viola to observe, “I warrant thou art a merry fellow and carest
for nothing” but there is little evidence that he is a “merry” soul. There is a deep and indefinable
melancholy about the character which we sense throughout the course of the play – when he observes to
Olivia that “Beaut’s a flower”, when he sings the sad and profound concluding song, when he passes into
an inexplicable silence at the end of Act II, Scene III. His melancholy may stem from his awareness of the
fragility and mutability of all things. This is why so many of his jokes have an underlying tinge of sadness –
“He is but mad yet, Madonna, and the fool shall look into the madman” (Act I, Scene V
So when he retorts to Viola “I do care for something…”, we expect him to reveal something profound.
Instead, he veers off into a joke at Viola's expense. But we can assume that if he cares for anything, it
would be the truth of things. In this manner, Feste is integral to the atmosphere of the play. The jokes and
witticisms he introduces enhances the gaiety and the flavour of comic mirth. Paradoxically, he also
captures the sadness in ‘Twelfth Night’. Thus, it is Feste who brings out the many moods, colours and
textures to the play.
Truth sets him apart which is why he is in Illyria but he does not really belong. He is present on tolerance.
Indeed, how can he actually belong to a youthful world of self-delusion and self-indulgence. He is the
outsider who looks on wisely. And when the lovers go off into the golden world he is left alone, un-needed,
forgotten. There is a sadness there as he stands alone, reminding us that he has always stood alone,
speaking but with no one really listening. By doing this, Shakespeare subverts the traditional happy-ending
which is expected of a comedy. So it is Feste’s task to pull down the curtain and let the roar of the
implacable world return. His melancholic presence darkens the happy ending of the play. Thus, Coghill
remarks, “He has it in him to glitter the golden world, and yet to throw across it the long and deepening
shadow.”
Through Feste, Shakespeare shows us jesters in the ideal, not what they were, but all they could never be.
He is a brilliant example of what one finds in so many of Shakespeare’s creations – there is more to them
than they actually need for the plays in which they appear – they spill over into life. Thus, of all
Shakespeare's clowns, Feste is the best endowed with a many-sided mirth, as indeed he should be to pass
lightly through the mingled romance and roistering of the play and favour all its moods.
CARNIVAL vs LENT / AS A FESTIVE COMEDY
Through the Middle Ages various folk customs, traditions and rituals parodied the forms and emblems of
authority. These traditions known as ‘misrule’ and more recently, ‘carnival’ aimed at making fun of those in
power. The laughter associated with these practices is called ‘inversionary laughter’ because its function
was to turn the world upside down.
The medieval Christian calendar was dotted with occasions when the holiday license extended to the
parodying of the usual structures of authority. This included the Feast of Epiphany or Twelfth Night, that is,
the 6th of January -- the celebration of Christ’s various appearances or ‘epiphanies’ to the magi, the
shepherds, and to the world when he changed water to wine. In the west, it was celebrated with a degree
of the carnivalesque: a period of carnival in which social hierarchies were temporarily re-arranged to
become ‘topsy-turvy’. A ‘Lord of Misrule’ was often appointed; or an alternative king and queen, chosen
merely on the basis of who happened to get the piece of a communal cake with either a bean or a pea in it.
The Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin uses the term ‘carnival’ to describe these inversionary traditions. He sees
them as an integral part of the official pageants and ceremonies of medieval Europe. Carnival, according to
Bakhtin, offered a completely different aspect of the world, of man and of human relations. It builds a
second world and a second life outside officialdom. So we have the pervasive battle between Carnival and
Lent in medieval culture.
The two-world condition, that is, the world of official culture and the subversive carnival world, is a
powerful image of what happens in Shakespeare’s plays – ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, ‘As You Like It’,
‘Measure for Measure’, and of course ‘Twelfth Night’. In ‘Twelfth Night’, the primary opposition can thus
be said to be between the champions of abstinence and those of revelry. The play stages the battle
between Carnival and Lent and the opposition between virtue, and cakes and ale.
C. L. Barber recognizes that Shakespeare's emphasis in certain comedies is more on intensifying the
atmosphere of revelry and holiday than on adapting source material to an underlying romantic paradigm.
He explains how "the social form of Elizabethan holidays contributed to the dramatic form of festive
comedy. To relate this drama to holiday has proved to be the most effective way to describe its character.”
The underplot ‘Twelfth Night’ is a series of holiday revels presided over by the two principal festive
celebrants, Sir Toby as the ‘Lord of Misrule’ and Feste as the clown and fool. The festive celebrants indulge
in bawdy wit, participate in boisterous revelry, and function as tricksters. Their victims, on the other hand,
are twitted, gulled, and abused not only for their pretensions but also for their festive inadequacies: either
an antagonism toward revelry or an inability to participate in it. Malvolio, who seems to represent the
Lenten attitude towards life, disparages Feste and attempts to stifle the revels of ‘Twelfth Night’ in Act 2,
Scene 3. His hostile attitude piques the celebrants, who later abuse him by capitalizing on his ambitions to
be a nobleman and to be Olivia's husband in Act 2, Scene 5.
Act 1, Scene 3 is the exposition to the Carnival sub-plot, or the “downstairs of the plot”, and immediately,
we notice an apparent shift in the mood and atmosphere as we move from the Romantic main-plot, also
known as the “upstairs of the plot”, to the Festive sub-plot and this becomes evident with Sir Toby’s first
line -- “I am sure care’s an enemy to life.” All the characters of the sub-plot, with the exception of Malvolio,
are devoted to feasting, merry-making, and celebrating life as though each day were a holiday. The conflict
between the Carnival and the Lent is brought to the forefront in Act 2, Scene 3 where Malvolio puts a stop
to the Revellers’ raucous behaviour.
“Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?”, demands Malvolio, roused in the middle of the
night to complain about Revellers’ drunken singing and rowdiness. According to Malvolio, who is described
by Maria as “a kind of puritan”, such behaviour is not a legitimate expression of festivity but merely
“uncivil rule”. In this he is indeed akin to the puritan faction within the English Church in Shakespeare’s
time, who wanted those pre-Reformation festival practices which remained part of the ecclesiastical
calendar removed, and who were especially keen to ban recreational activities on Sundays and the fund-
raising parish booze-ups known as ‘church ales’. For the puritans, the whole year should be spent in
sobriety: there should be no more carnival, only a perpetual, law-abiding Lent. In all possibility,
Shakespeare could be portraying Malvolio in this snobbish manner so that a 17th century audience would
find his punishment later on in the play more acceptable.
To be festive is to do things to excess and to turn things upside-down. In this regard, to say that the main
plot is completely devoid of festive elements would be an inadequate reading of the play. The main plot
and the sub-plot parallel each other in more ways than one. This can be ascertained by the first five lines of
the play which contain a cluster of images that include all aspects of festivity -- “excess”, “appetite”,
“surfeiting”, “sicken”, “music” -- and thus, establish Orsino as a festive character in terms of attitude
towards life. Therefore, it can be said that the main plot is just as festive as the sub-plot, but it is so
metaphorically.
This becomes even more apparent in Act 1, Scene 4 when Orsino instructs Cesario to “be clamorous and
leap all civil bounds” when he asks Cesario to woo Olivia on his behalf. As a Duke, Orsino is supposed to
formulate laws and ensure that they are followed and so, when he recommends a violation of rules, he is
opening the gates for disorder and carnival because being festive is to break the rules of everyday life.
Another character in the Romantic main plot is Countess Olivia who, as we are told, has just lost her
brother and so, she decides to live in an alienated, sterile world and cuts herself off from society as an
expression of her grief following her brother’s death. She cloisters herself like a nun and commits herself to
chastity, refusing to socialize with anyone. Therefore, she, too, can be deemed a festive character as her
decisions and actions are evidently exaggerated, like that of Orsino.
Olivia reasserts the fact that she is a festive character when she negates her function as the Petrarchan
mistress and renounces the roles that are thrust upon her by a male-dominated society. She reverses
traditional gender roles when she pursues a man (Cesario) instead of being the passive Petrarchan mistress
that she is expected to be. Her festive attitude comes to the forefront as she breaks the patriarchal norms
of society. So, it would not be incorrect to conclude that perhaps, the Petrarchan is just as festive as the
downstairs characters as both tend to do things to excess.
Similarly, despite his Lenten tendencies, Malvolio may also be regarded as a festive character, primarily
because he takes his self-obsession – “O, you are sick of self-love…” -- too far, much like Orsino. His
ambition to become “Count Malvolio” leads him to forget that his position is merely that of a steward, and
this makes him an easy prey to the prank played upon him by the Revellers in Act 2, Scene 5.
Thus, the apparent differences between the two plots of the play are only superficial. This is because much
like the characters of the main plot who devote every day to Romance, the characters of the sub-plot
carelessly treat every day like it’s a holiday. As a result of this, characters of both the plots have distanced
themselves from reality by living in their worlds of illusion. Ergo, the Festive attitude is the same as the
Romantic attitude because it is all about distancing oneself from reality. However, it was important for
Shakespeare to show contrast between the two plots on the surface so that he could deconstruct this
illusion in the course of the play. So, what happens in the main plot adumbrated with that which happens
in the sub-plot creates a sense of universality.
MALVOLIO
The origins of the main plot in Shakespeare's ‘Twelfth Night’ have been traced to a cluster of earlier
comedies and their derivatives; however, the subplot, involving Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, Feste, Maria, and
their "gull," Malvolio, was entirely Shakespeare's invention. Like the main story, the Malvolio subplot also
involves comic "errors," disguise and performance, and the pursuit of marriage. It similarly explores the
themes of identity, desire, and the confusion of both. In fact, the "gulling" of Malvolio and Sir Toby's
debauched revelry literalize the "misrule" of the main story. But the subplot does not resolve itself as
neatly as the main plot does; indeed, it fails to resolve itself at all. It might be supposed, then, that
Shakespeare sought to counter the easy connubial resolutions inherent in his sources with something more
problematic, thereby adding to the comic ending of the play something of a tragic one. Joel Fineman wrote
that Malvolio "plays the role of the outsider whose unhappiness is the measure of comic spirit, the
alternative to comedy that makes us value the comic all the more".
Malvolio initially seems to be a minor character, and his humiliation seems little more than an amusing
subplot to the Viola-Olivia-Orsino love triangle. But he becomes more interesting as the play progresses,
and most critics have judged him as one of the most complex and fascinating characters in ‘Twelfth
Night’. When we first meet Malvolio, he seems to be a simple type—a puritan, a stiff and proper servant
who likes nothing better than to spoil other people’s fun.
“Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?” demands Malvolio, roused in the middle of the
night to complain about Revellers’ drunken singing and rowdiness (Act 2, Scene 3). According to Malvolio,
who is described by Maria as “a kind of puritan”, such behaviour is not a legitimate expression of festivity
but merely “uncivil rule”. In this he is indeed akin to the puritan faction within the English Church in
Shakespeare’s time, who wanted those pre-Reformation festival practices which remained part of the
ecclesiastical calendar removed, and who were especially keen to ban recreational activities on Sundays
and the fund-raising parish booze-ups known as ‘church ales’. For the puritans, the whole year should be
spent in sobriety: there should be no more carnival, only a perpetual, law-abiding Lent. In all possibility,
Shakespeare could be portraying Malvolio in this snobbish manner so that a 17th century audience would
find his punishment later on in the play more acceptable.
In the aforementioned scene, Malvolio is right when he informs the Revellers that they are idle, shallow
things, and he is not of their element. But he interrupts their carousing at midnight in such a sour and lofty
way that his righteousness becomes questionable. Shakespeare, thus, ensures the audience’s response to
Malvolio’s character is that he deserves everything that he is subjected to.
It is this dour, fun-despising and condescending attitude that earns him the enmity of Sir Toby, Feste and
Maria, who together engineer his downfall. But they do so by playing on a side of Malvolio that might have
otherwise remained hidden—his “self-love” and his remarkable ambitions.
In the subtitle of the play, ‘Or, What you will’, "Will" has been generally interpreted as "volition" or
"desire," so as to suggest that the logic of the play turns on wishful thinking rather than an objective
reality. But in the Saturnalian tradition, "what you will" also refers to identity, as in "what you will be."
Malvolio confuses identity and desire when, walking in Olivia's garden, he muses, "To be Count Malvolio!"
(Act 2, Scene 5). But we know that Malvolio's fantasy is a pose without possibility. He is a literal example of
the Italian malvoglio, which means "ill will," but here also seems to imply "wrong desire." Malvolio's sin is
not only his alienating behaviour toward others in the household, but also both the inappropriate desire to
marry his mistress and rise in social rank, and the sin of "self-love." The punishment for such sins, as he
discovers, is severe.
When he finds the forged letter from Olivia (actually penned by Maria) that seems to offer hope to his
ambitions, Malvolio undergoes his first transformation—from a stiff and wooden embodiment of priggish
propriety into a personification of the power of self-delusion. He is ridiculous in these scenes, as he capers
around in the yellow stockings and crossed garters that he thinks will please Olivia, but he also becomes
pitiable. The change of clothing suggests his belief that altering his wardrobe can lead to an alteration of
his social status. When he dreams of being Olivia’s husband, he imagines himself above all in a different set
of clothes, suggesting that class and clothing are inextricably linked.

He may deserve his come-uppance, but there is an uncomfortable universality to his experience. Malvolio’s
misfortune is a cautionary tale of ambition overcoming good sense, and the audience winces at the way he
adapts every event—including Olivia’s confused assumption that he must be mad—to fit his rosy picture of
his glorious future as a nobleman. Earlier, he embodies stiff joylessness; now he is joyful, but in pursuit of a
dream that everyone, except him, knows is false.

Our pity for Malvolio only increases when the vindictive Revellers confine him to a dark room in Act 4. As
he desperately protests that he is not mad, Malvolio begins to seem more of a victim than a victimizer, and
the audience begins to develop a sense of sympathy for his character. It is as if the unfortunate steward, as
the embodiment of order and sobriety, must be sacrificed so that the rest of the characters can indulge in
the hearty spirit that suffuses Twelfth Night.

The play allows Malvolio no real recompense for his sufferings. At the close of the play, he is brought out
of the darkness into a celebration in which he has no part, and where no one seems willing to offer him a
real apology. “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you,” he snarls, stalking out of the festivities (Act 5,
Scene 1). His exit strikes a jarring note in an otherwise joyful comedy. Malvolio has no real place in the
anarchic world of ‘Twelfth Night’, except to suggest that, even in the best of worlds, someone must suffer
while everyone else is happy.
Feste’s speech before Malvolio’s exit brings out our feelings of pathos for Malvolio. As Feste publicly
humiliates Malvolio by mimicking his phrases and manner to sting him with a last fluttering dart, it seems
that he has held a personal grudge against Malvolio. This is what leads Neville Coghill to call Feste a
“malicious grudge-bearer”. However, the nature of Malvolio’s exit, above all, tells us that Maria’s “physic”
has not worked because Malvolio remains uncured, trapped in the “dark room” of self and unavailable for
meaningful relationships, still isolated from his fellows and from an integrated life in society.
Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy, and romantic love is the play’s main focus. Despite the fact that the
play offers a happy ending, in which the various lovers find one another and achieve wedded bliss,
Shakespeare shows that love can cause pain. Some people achieve romantic happiness, while others do
not. At the end of the play, as the happy lovers rejoice, Malvolio is prevented from having the object of his
desire. Malvolio, who has pursued Olivia, must ultimately face the realization that he is a fool, socially
unworthy of his noble mistress.
In this manner, the problem of social ambition works itself out largely through Malvolio’s character, who
seems to be a competent servant, if prudish and unfriendly, but proves to be, in fact, a supreme egotist,
with tremendous ambitions to rise out of his social class. Malvolio’s antagonist, Maria, is able to increase
her social standing by marrying Sir Toby. But it seems that Maria’s success may be due to her willingness to
accept and promote the anarchy that Sir Toby and the others embrace. This Twelfth Night spirit, then,
seems to pass by Malvolio, who doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace the upending of order and decorum but
rather wants to blur class lines for himself alone.