Read the following conclusions and decide which you like best and why.
Note: these conclusions represent a range in terms of depth, clarity, and precision of thought.
1. Twelfth Night seems to have a happily ever after conclusion, as Viola and Olivia are ultimately returned to their “correct” female roles as the young brides of Orsino and Sebastian. However, assuming their supposedly rightful parts comes at a heavy cost. Olivia’s taste of perfect love is foiled by reality. The promise of male-female duality represented by “Cesario” is lost when the play substitutes Sebastian for “Cesario,” and Olivia weds herself to a life of gender conformity. Orsino doesn’t retain any of the manly respect he had for “Cesario” once he discovers Viola’s identity. True to his narcissistic personality, he assumes that Viola will long to marry him. Sadly, the fact that Viola does love Orsino suggests that when the lights go up, the possibility of “Cesario” and Olivia sharing true love is but a dream. Shakespeare’s comedy thus ends in a tragedy of conformity
2. Throughout Twelfth Night, we see a clear connection between Shakespearian wit and the formation of love, partially because of the fact that wit is such an ambiguous and intriguing personal quality. However, does wit really define what love is? Is wit actually powerful enough to sway the solid foundation and clear-cut nature of love? Perhaps. However, at the end of Twelfth Night, neither wit nor love can sway the feelings of an individual, but it is the two harmoniously working together that can shake the base foundations of any individual down to his or her very core. As seen with the entire love tree in this play, all of the characters are attracted by wit but moved by love, implying that, perhaps, wit actually epitomizes the very essence of love.
3. Antonio and Olivia, though demonstrating the dangers of falling quickly in love with idealized qualities, also show an important truth about love: it can be quite confusing, complicated, and lead to a plethora of trouble. Shakespeare says a great deal about love in Twelfth Night, so what is he saying here? The best possible guess is that Antonio and Olivia are warnings to anyone who thinks about love: if one behaves like these characters in terms of love, love-based problems are bound to occur.