Typed Prompt

A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the character or characters of the theme of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

Essay,

 In the Twelfth Night we find a romantic comedy, where romantic love is the main focus of the play itself. All ends well in the play with each lover being united as one, but in order to get there all characters go through some type of pain or suffering, a true trail in and of itself. The trail, the pain, the suffering is the symbol we find ourselves looking at most in this play, and that is that 'love can cause pain.' Love is the villain in this play.

Many of the characters seem to view love as a kind of curse, a feeling that attacks its victims suddenly and disruptively. An example of this is when Viola falls madly truly and deeply in love with the man she tends to; Orsino. Oh how the characters ache and claim to suffer painfully from being in love. Orsino cries out at one point in the play, "fell and cruel hands". Olivia describes the feeling of love to be a "plague". Which is nothing love truly is, love is suppose to be happy, and cheerful. This symbol of love is thought of as a pleasure, but it is a curse among the characters of the play. This love is desperate, and hungry. This love is violent! How can William Shakespeare make something that is thought of as so innocent to be something that is not so much forbidden as it is a plague. Well he found a way, he made it to where love was a curse in and of itself, you did not wish it upon yourself yet the love was there.

In conclusion I find the symbolism of love the feeling of love to be terrible a sickening disease that crawls inside and cannot find an escape. Love can cause pain without the person that you love doing anything to you.

MEDIA

Viola

A young girl, and the play’s protagonist. She is washed up on the shore of Illyria when her ship is wrecked in a storm. She disguises herself as a young man, calling herself "Cesario." She then starts to work for Duke Orsino, and becomes one of his favorites. She ends up falling in love with him, which is difficult to explain (even though she doesn't) because she is suppose to be a man.

Truth,

Imagination often seems more powerful than reality.

Meaning,

The play’s opening speech includes one of its most famous lines, as the unhappy, lovesick Orsino tells his servants and musicians, (Quote Below) In the speech that follows, Orsino asks for the musicians to give him so much musical tunes he will become sick. Through these words, Shakespeare introduces the image of love as something unwanted.

Quote Act i. Scene 1.

"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound 1
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!"