Plot Holes in Twelfth Nigtht
Plot Holes in Twelfth Night
This paper was created as a handout for students in a class called "Shakespeare's Fiery Couples." Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, but a few things do not quite make sense. These "mistakes" do not really reflect badly on Shakespeare; many of his plots have similar problems. He does not seem to have been very concerned with the details of his stories and apparently his audiences weren't either. Still, it is interesting to note the kinds of errors that crept in either through carelessness or incomplete revision.
1) Viola decides to come to Orsino's court disguised as a eunuch. She believes she can find employment in this guise because she can sing (1.12.57-9).
Viola does not sing during the course of the play. The eunuch idea is dropped. Feste does all the singing except for the rounds in which Sir Toby and Sir Andrew join him.
2) Olivia falls in love at first sight and wants to marry what she thinks is a boy so young his voice has not yet cracked (1.5.290-8).
Does this seem likely to you?
3) Feste is to witness the gulling of Malvolio (2.3.172-6).
When the time comes, Fabian appears out of nowhere and takes Feste's place in that scene (2.5).
4) It is clear that Sebastian and Viola were on the same ship (2.1.25-31).
Yet, Sebastian does not arrive in Illyria until three months after his sister (5.1.94 & 99). What took so long?
5) Viola has been in Orsino's court three days when sent on her embassy to Olivia. Add a day for the shipwreck and call it four days (1.4.3). Add the day she is sent, as I read the play, and the story appears to take five days from first scene to last. You can argue for six. You really cannot argue for seven.
There is the testimony of 5.1.94 & 99 that three months have passed. There are many such time paradoxes in Shakespeare.
