SOURCE: Field, B. S., Jr. “Fate, Fortune, and Twelfth Night.” Michigan Academician 6, no. 2 (fall 1973): 193-99.

In the following essay, Field considers the reactions of characters in Twelfth Night to the whims of fortune and fate.

Most critics of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night agree that the central characters of the play are Viola and Malvolio, that one represents behavior to be emulated and the latter shows us behavior to be shunned. C. L. Barber, among the most representative and influential of modern critics of this play, in Shakespeare's Festive Comedy¹ observes that Viola, because of her mastery of courtesy in the play, is the central character who serves as a standard of right behavior by which others in the play may be judged. The fact has been pointed out so often by subsequent critics that it seems to be self-evident. Still, it would be useful if Shakespeare had offered us...