Malvolio Makes a ‘Contemplative Idiot’ Out of Himself in The Box Tree Scene

Twelfth Night introduces a wide variety of humour portrayed in a number of ways appealing to audiences from Shakespearean times through to contemporary audiences of today. Many of the devices used by Shakespeare are still used in modern comedy programmes, for example drunkenness, used often on television, in ‘Men Behaving Badly’ and ‘Bottom’. Shakespeare is also seen as a starting point for many other genres and structures of comedy, for instance the classic comedy double act. The ‘straight’, serious partner, and a ‘clown’, usually undermining the straight man, who feeds the jokes. Morecambe and Wise, and Laurel and Hardy used this pattern.

There is also often a lone figure, who entertains the audience in a different way. This role appears in comedy today, such as Jasper Carrot and Mr. Bean, who are often laughed at, but the viewers also find themselves sympathising and pitying the character. Mr. Bean is a solitary figure, and in many episodes is often seen sending himself birthday cards and Christmas presents. This is parallel to the part of Malvolio in Twelfth Night. The practical joke played on him in the ‘Box Tree Scene’ can be considered unnecessarily cruel and a meaner trick than he may really deserve, making the audience pity him, although they may also laugh at him.

It seems simple fun in this scene, but its consequence- when Malvolio is locked up and considered a lunatic after appearing in front of Olivia in Act IV, Scene ii. Is undeserved. The Box Tree Scene raises and develops such themes as the confusion of identity, the importance of clothing to establish identity, and the complications that love brings to the plot. The scene opens with Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Fabian waiting for Maria before the joke is to be carried out.

Using a directorial device, Maria orders them behind the ‘box-tree’ to observe Malvolio making a ‘contemplative idiot’ out of himself. She tells them he has been in the sun ‘practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour’. Malvolio evidently fancies himself as a nobleman and Olivia’s husband even before the letter is found, and the letter only serves to increase the fancy. Malvolio enters the scene as the others hide, and he seems to imagine himself as attractive to Maria, saying “she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her.

He evidently considers himself a sex-god, and in his sordid fantasies he later imagines himself “having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping”, before finding the letter which interrupts his daydream. Malvolio’s fantasy also involves the device of disguise. He imagines himself “in my branched velvet gown”, which was the clothing of wealthy noblemen. He speaks of his fantasy of being ‘Count’ Malvolio, this is a wish to change identity, and his desire is based largely on the possibility of changing his status in society and obtaining more power.

His love for Olivia is in reality a love of her position and wealth, based on just the same reasons as Orsino has. Toby, Andrew and Maria deem it perfectly reasonable for Orsino to court Olivia although they find this hope of Malvolio’s ridiculous. This is not only because of his unattractive personality, but also because Malvolio is not aristocracy-he is a commoner, whereas Olivia is a gentlewoman and in the class system of Shakespeare’s time, it would have seemed very strange for aristocracy to marry “below” their rank.

This not a problem with which modern readers usually sympathise, but it is very important to Shakespeare’s characters, and is a large factor in why the other characters cannot imagine Olivia ever being interested in Malvolio. When Malvolio finds the letter that Maria has written and put in place on the garden path for him to find, Malvolio sees ‘his lady’s hand’. This is also yet another case of mistaken identity in Twelfth Night, and is used as a device to add humour. The letter is a narrative device and allows the audience to understand what is going on onstage.

In this part of the scene a pun is used that would appeal to the audience, being sexually suggestive and bawdy. As Malvolio looks at the letter for the first time he notices “her very C’s, her U’s, her T’s”. ‘Cut’ was a vulgar word for vagina in the Renaissance period. Malvolio seems completely unaware of these puns, but Sir Andrew notices and finds this allusion to Olivia indelicate and obscene. He has to restrain himself from giving the plot away when he responds by calling ‘Why that-‘ before the letter is continued.

This adds visual humour when the play is being acted on stage, depending on the director’s interpretation. The letter Malvolio receives which he supposes is from Olivia also asks him to alter his clothing, wearing yellow stockings and crossed garters. He doesn’t realise that in actual fact that yellow is a colour Olivia despises, and she hates the fashion of cross-gartering- to wear the straps of stockings crossed around his knees. This is a parody of the fashion of the time, mocking it as looking ridiculous, just as today many programmes such as ‘French and Saunders’ and Harry Enfield often mock modern fashion and crazes.

The device of disguise carried here into the sub-plots, is also used in the play’s central plot revolving around Viola disguising herself in men’s clothes. Clothing and disguise figures heavily into Twelfth Night, as person’s identity appears to be sometimes dependent on their clothing, for example in Malvolio’s fantasies, and sometimes separate from their clothing as Orsino finds himself becoming increasingly closer to ‘Cesario’. Malvolio not only disguises himself on the outside, but at the same time he is asked to disguise his personality by coming before her smiling.

Olivia is still in mourning at this stage for her brother and father, thus making his smiles even more out of place and bizarre to her. Maria flatters him in the letter by saying ‘thy smiles become thee well’. This personality may be a disguise, although it may also be Malvolio’s true character that he has been forced to oppress because of his situation in the house and status in society. The newfound confidence he is given in receiving this letter maybe instead of asking him to change his personality, is really letting him show his true self that he has been hiding behind a front of hostility.

Malvolio may have been masking himself previously, and now he is given the chance to remove this guise. Maria also orders him to ‘be surly to the servants’ and ‘opposite with a kinsman’. Olivia’s kinsman is Sir Toby, so Malvolio takes this to mean that he is free to be rude and disrespectful of him, and thinks that Olivia wants him to do this to show his love for her. This is likely to only make her dislike him more- the point of Maria’s plan. Another factor which is important in Malvolio deluding himself into thinking Olivia loves him is the wish that she has for raising him above his servitude into a position of power.

He thinks she is telling him to “be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em. ” Olivia says in the closing of the letter “She that would happily alter services with thee”. Olivia seems to be offering to become his servant. Malvolio takes this to mean that she will raise his status and give him power over all in the household- even Sir Toby although the ambiguity also means he can be a master over her. This is how Malvolio has seen himself in his fantasies, and if he was her master his fantasies would be fully accomplished.

As soon as Malvolio finishes this part of the letter, his imagination runs wild. He sees so many opportunities to become more powerful. He wants to “read politic authors… baffle Sir Toby… wash off gross acquaintance”. He also tells himself he will not let imagination fool him, because “every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me”. The letter makes it so clear to him that she loves him, that he has no doubt. This is why that when he comes before Olivia and she doesn’t respond to the gestures he makes showing his love, he assumes it is a love game that she is playing.

He is so sure that it is from her he plays along, appearing all the more peculiar for Olivia finally making her decide he is mad. Towards the end of the scene Maria re-enters, and both Sir Toby and Sir Andrew bow down to her, both offering to marry her “with no other dowry than such another jest”. Maria tells them yellow is a colour she abhors, cross gartering is a fashion she detests, and him smiling at her will be “so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt”.

This is making the past scene clear to the audience, the reasons behind the wishes of Maria to have him dressed and for him to appear in such a way before Olivia now leaves the audience predicting her reaction. Mistaken identity and situation is used often as a device, and there are many instances in both this scene and the rest of the play. The most obvious in this scene is when Malvolio finds the letter that Maria has written and assumes it is from Olivia as he sees ‘his lady’s hand’. Mistaken identity adds further humour through dramatic irony- when the audience knows more than the person on stage.

In this case Malvolio has no idea that it is only a joke being played on him, and not Olivia confessing her love to her “unknown beloved”, which Malvolio assumes is him. The visual devices used in this scene are widely used themes. The main props in this scene are the letter which Malvolio reads from, and the box-tree which is used to hide Toby, Andrew and Fabian. These props are essential to the scene. In some of the versions we saw, the Box Tree is on wheel, so Toby and Andrew can follow Malvolio as he moves around.

Malvolio also picks up the letter, reading it and as he walks away he skips waving it in his hands When Malvolio finds the letter he starts reading it aloud letting the audience hear his reactions to his belief that the “unknown beloved” in the letter is actually himself. This device is soliloquy, when a character speaks out loud to the audience or themselves on stage, letting the audience hear his reactions and letting Toby, Andrew and Fabian over hear him while hiding behind the Box Tree, so they can react visually for the audience to his misconception.

Malvolio is apparently unaware of their presence, although in some interpretations of this scene, the box-tree is made very obvious, which adds exaggerated comedy to the situation, to give it the feel of a pantomime. Malvolio tends to exclude himself throughout the play, dreaming of superiority, therefore making him an object of ridicule to the audience and other characters. They believe that he makes a ‘contemplative idiot’ out of himself, but because of his disillusions, to him his fantasies are completely realistic. This further increases the cause for ridicule making Malvolio a funny, but lonely figure.