Twelfth Night Reflections -Hanna A.

Something that stuck out to me in Twelfth Night is the fact that Feste the fool is the most profound character in the play. The idea that Feste is the most profound character (instead of the least, which might be the normal assumption) points back to the importance of Malvolio leaving Illyria in the end. Malvolio, the character that would, perhaps, seem to be the most serious character, ends up being the fool of the play, while Feste, the fool, is really the wisest of the roles in the play.

Feste plays along with many of the games within the play, but also has the lines and moments with the most depth. One perfect example of this idea is his line near the end of the play, “Why, ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them’” (5.1, 366-367). Feste has a habit of pulling catchy and wonderfully applicable little tidbits of wisdom out of thin air. He is not only witty but also wise. In this one line, Feste establishes the entire theme of the play, which is the theme of greatness. What indeed makes a man or a woman great? Is it rank, faith, integrity, or some other abstract attribute? It is clear in Twelfth Night that the Feste the fool is one of the great ones, along with others, especially Viola. The main thing to notice it seems though, is that Malvolio, the serious one who is also a Puritan, is the one who is left at the end as the great fool. It strikes me that this is the case, not only because he is a Puritan, but because he is unable to the moment but is constantly caught up in pride, the way others view him, and his own desire to advance socially in rank. Pride, lust for power, and deep-seated insecurities are what keep him from being great. Feste on the other hand, the fool, is completely able to live into his greatness simply because he does not take himself too seriously, is humble beneath his false pride, and is in no way insecure. This then leads to the conclusion that greatness has very little to do with self-perception.

At the end of the play, Feste finishes off the theatricality with a rather serious song. The song progresses from boyhood to manhood and focuses especially on the idea that “By swaggering could I never thrive” (5.1, 394). This means that bullying, pride, and pushing to the top never gets a person anywhere. So, though Feste is, by all appearances, the “fool” of the play, he is most definitely the instigator of much of the dialogue that contains more depth.