Student Essay on A Character Study of Malvolio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

In his play Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare portrayed the character Malvolio as being excessively arrogant and full of self-pride. These negative qualities, emphasized throughout the play, would inevitably prove harmful to Malvolio as he is tricked through a forged note that he believes his beloved Olivia wrote to him. Through Malvolio, Shakespeare intended to show that individuals need to have a balanced sense of self-awareness, to recognize their flaws, and to try to correct such flaws -- something Malvolio fails to do.

In the Shakespearean play Twelfth Night there appears the character Malvolio who is seen as a social 'reject' whom a 'trick' is played upon later in the play. Shakespeare portrays Malvolio as a character who is completely obsessed about himself, so much so that eventually this excessive self pride and arrogance proves to be his undoing as a character. In the first two acts of the play it is clear that Malvolio views characters such as Feste and Sir Toby as being 'inferior' to himself although Shakespeare questions these thoughts. Malvolio pretends to be a puritan although in reality merely uses this form as a disguise that allows him to criticise others and point out their flaws without considering his own. Shakespeare uses the character Malvolio to portray the need for a well-balanced self-awareness.

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