But perhaps the most attractive aspect of Viola - to a modern audience, at least - is her vigorous, good-humored, unpretentious personality. Unlike Olivia, whose counterpart and opposite she is, she makes no melodramatic plans to mourn her brother's apparent death with extravagant gestures. Instead, her grief is quiet, deep, sincere - and tinged with hope that Sebastian may still be alive. Furthermore, finding herself in a difficult, perhaps compromising position in a strange country, she spends little time bemoaning the harshness of her fate, but immediately sets to work with characteristic practical energy to figure out a way to improve her situation. When she enters Orsino's servi

Viola, on the other hand, reacts more calmly and sensibly, though no less sorrowfully, to the possibility that Sebastian may have been killed. She coldly, and rather unsympathetically rejects Orsino's proposals of marriage, but Viola is a little more compassionate in her reaction to Olivia's own avowals of love. Finally, she falls passionately and wholeheartedly in love with "Cesario," and is unable to restrain herself from impulsively declaring her feelings for the "youth" almost at the first opportunity. (Viola, in contrast, comes close to confessing her love for Orsino, but her iron self-control doesn't weaken in the end.)

Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's riotous relative (really her uncle, though he's often called "cousin" in the general fashion of the day) is the chief comic character and certainly the chief comic conspirator in Twelfth Night. The Elizabethan Twelfth Night celebration, which corresponded to the feast of the Epiphany, coming twelve days after Christmas, was often organized and dominated by a jolly person called the Lord of Misrule, who was in charge of the frolics and pranks that were so popular at this time of year. Many modern critics have quite naturally seen in Sir Toby Shakespeare's embodiment, in a play written expressly for the Twelfth Night festivities, of this same Lord of Misrule. Certainly Toby fits all the requirements of the part exactly. Hard-drinking, healthy, strong-willed, jovial and fond of every kind of merrymaking-plots, puns and brawls as well as wine, women and song-he's equalled among Shakespeare's own creations only by Sir John Falstaff, that similarly jolly loose-liver who was so popular in the Henry IV plays that Shakespeare wrote another whole play (The Merry Wives of Windsor) just for him. Perhaps, indeed, the playwright was trying once again to recapture his success with Falstaff in "Twelfth Night's Lord of Misrule. In any case, Toby's antics are always a hit with audiences, though an Elizabethan audience probably appreciated them even more than we do today.

Still, Feste's comic accomplishments are numerous too. His fussy parodies of learning make even the melancholy Olivia laugh, and his talent for mimicry (in the "Sir Topas" scene) convulses Maria and Toby, and completely deceives Malvolio. But besides being musical, shrewd and funny, Feste is shown to have a real personality of his own. His hatred for Malvolio, conceived when the steward insults him in act 1, scene 5, motivates much of the comic subplot, and even by the end of the play he hasn't quite rid himself of the desire for revenge-as his last taunting words to Malvolio reveal. Indeed, throughout the play, like any good fool, Feste is all things to all men, besides seeming to be, literally, everywhere-singing songs for the Duke, cheering up Olivia when she's sad, plotting with Toby and his friends, squabbling with Malvolio, and even disinterestedly commenting to the audience, in his final song, on the silliness of it all. Because of this, he acts as a perfect link between the serious characters, Orsino, Olivia and Viola, for whom he performs, and the comic characters, Toby, Andrew and Maria, with whom he carouses.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Sir Toby, Viola Vtoo, Sea Captain, Puritan Maria, Twelfth Night, Maria Toby, Countess Indeed, Andrew Aguecheek, Unlike Olivia, Sebastian Sebastian, sir toby, twelfth night, sir andrew, lord misrule, orsino olivia, serious characters, chief comic, characters orsino olivia, true love, love cesario, antonio he's, serious characters orsino, night's lord misrule, indeed throughout play, antonio he's loyal,
Approximate Word count = 3285
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)