4. Rosalind & Viola ; women in disguise

The disguise is a common element in both plays and a powerfull convention in the theatre at the time. Rosalind and Viola are two important examples.

Twelfth Night or What You Will and As You Like It are two of Shakespeare’s so called travestite comedies, a category that also includes The Merchant of Venice. These plays present female protagonists who, for one reason or another, have to disguise themselves as young men. It is important to remember that in Shakespeare’s times, all of the parts were played by men, so Viola and Rosalind would actually have been a male pretending to be a female pretending to be a male. Contemporary critics have found a great deal of interest in the homoerotic implications of these plays.

Rosalind, considered one of Shakespeare’s most delightful heroines, is independent minded, strong-willed, good-hearted, and very clever. She shows her talents and charms when she disguises herself as Ganymede (a handsome young man) and helps her beloved Orlando to woo a woman ( she herself). Only Rosalind, for instance, is both aware of the foolishness of romantic love and delighted to be in love. She teaches those around her to think, feel, and love better than they have previously.

Viola is a young woman of aristocratic birth , and the play’s protagonist. She is also a tremendously likable figure. She has no serious faults, Viola’s chief problem throughout the play is one of identity. Because of her disguise, she must be both herself and Cesario. In the same way than Rosalind must be at the same time Rosalind and Ganymedes.

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We have the same triangles in these plays, both Rosalind and Viola are in love with a man, Rosalind loves Orlando and Viola loves Orsino and their disguises create the same confusion in both plays; two female characters (Phoebe and Olivia) fall in love with them thinking they are men.

Orlando -----------------Rosalind/ Ganymedes --------------------------Phoebe

Orsino ------------------Viola/ Cesario ---------------------------Olivia

In Twelfth Night Orsino doesn’t love Viola because he doesn’t know her as a woman and he is in love with Olivia.In As You Like It Orlando loves Rosalind and she loves him because he already knew her before she became a boy. But the end is the same, both plays end with the wedding of the couple together with another wedding belonging to a secondary plot of the play.

Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Greystone Theatre. 1964

4.1. Rosalind and Viola’s differences

For all these similarities between As You Like It and Twelfth Night however, there are some obvious differences, all of which tend to stress that Viola's task is more difficult that Rosalind's.Viola has less freedom and authority than Rosalind does, she may be dressed up as a man, but Cesario is a servant to the man she loves and has to obey him so she certainly can’t challenge him directly while Rosalind with Orlando has a freedom that allows her to initiate the courtship games and to address Orlando as an equal (and to childe him and mock him as she likes). On the other hand Rosalind also has the class authority to dismiss Phoebe while Olivia’s love for Viola complicates the story, because Viola/Cesario is not free to treat Olivia as she because Olivia is also a person with some authority and because Viola cannot confront Olivia as she might like to without offending Orsino. Viola, in other words, cannot take charge of her courtship while Rosalind, by comparison, can set the rules and decide about her meetings with Orlando. She also knows where she is and who all the people around her are all the time and most important, she is sure from the beginning that Orlando loves her while Viola has been cast up on the shore of a strange land. She does not know where she is, and she has no close friends to turn to.

Academic year 2006/2007
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Latorre Arnedo, Isabel
usuario@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press