Twelfth Night” or “What You Will” is one of Shakespeare's many comic plays. This essay will attempt to critically analyze a passage from Act 1, Scene 5 of “Twelfth Night.” The passage primarily focuses on a conversation between Feste and Olivia about grieving her brother. This conversation adds comedy to the play, which helps shape it as a whole. The passage also briefly involves the character, Malvolio, who contributes to an underlying truth in the play. This essay will explain the meaning of the passage, attempt to dissect the uses of the language, and determine the ideas behind the language. He will then attempt to justify why and how these ideas contained in the passage contribute to the piece as a whole. First, the passage from Act 1, Scene 5, is written in prose because it is primarily a conversation between Feste and Olivia. In Shakespeare's early plays, he often uses prose to signify the interactions between characters of a lower social class (Tootalian 3). This therefore suggests that the characters involved in this scene, with the exception of Olivia, belong to a lower social class. The punctuation used by those of a lower class in the passage is ironically correct. For example, Feste says: “If you don't want it, put me in a good mischief!... “Better a witty fool than a witty fool.” God bless you, ma'am. (1.5.28-32) (Greenblatt, et al. 1800). Feste is an ironic character because he is a fool or a clown, but he is actually very intelligent. Additionally, Olivia refers to Feste as a fool, saying, “Take that fool away” (1.5.33) (Greenblatt, et al. 1800). Feste intelligently responds to Olivia: “Don’t you hear, friends? Take away the lady” (1.5.34) (Greenblatt, et al. 1800). This is an example of how Olivia and Feste play word games, com... middle of paper... good liar. This further highlights that Malvolio is a representation of deception in the play. In conclusion, “Twelfth Night” or “Whatever You Will” by William Shakespeare is one of the many comic plays of Shakespeare. The passage from Act 1, Scene 5, focused primarily on a conversation between Feste and Olivia about grieving her brother. It was thanks to Feste and Olivia's puns that contributed to the play as a whole as they added humor to it. The passage also helped reveal an underlying theme of the play, which is deception as shown in the character Malvolio. This essay has attempted to explain the meaning of the passage, to dissect the language Shakespeare used, and to determine his ideas behind the language chosen. He then attempted to justify why and how these ideas in the passage contributed to the play as a whole..