12th Night : Malvolio

Question 1

Love and desire (Self-Love)

“O you are sick of…”

Answer 1

“self-love Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite.”
- Olivia Act 1, Scene 5

Question 2

Ambition and cruelty

“Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her…”

Answer 2

“… [throws down ring] If it be worth stooping for, there it lies.”
- Malvolio Act 2, Scene 2

Question 3

Ambition and cruelty

“You might have saved me my pains…”

Answer 3

“to have taken it away yourself.”
- Malvolio Act 2, Scene 2

Question 4

Ambition and cruelty

“My masters are you mad or what are you?…”

Answer 4

“Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse out of my lady’s house?”
- Malvolio Act 2, Scene 3

Question 5

Ambition and self-love

“Dost thou think that because thou art virtuous…”

Answer 5

“there shall be no more cakes and ale?”
- Sir Toby Act 2, Scene 3

Question 6

Ambition + Self-Love

“The devil a Puritan he is …”

Answer 6

“an affectioned ass… as he thinks, with excellencies that it is his grounds of faith that all that look upon him love him.”
- Maria Act 2, Scene 3

Question 7

Ambition and Self-Love

“Besides, she uses me with a more…”

Answer 7

“exalted respect than anyone else that follows her. What should I think on’t?”
- Malvolio, Act 2, Scene 5

Question 8

Ambition

“To be…”

Answer 8

“Count Malvolio.”
- Malvolio, Act 2, Scene 5

Question 9

Ambition

“There is example for’t : The Lady of…”

Answer 9

“the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe.”
- Malvolio Act 2, Scene 5

Question 10

Ambition + Self-Love

“I will be proud, I will read political authors…”

Answer 10

“I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device the very man.”
- Malvolio Act 2, Scene 5

Question 11

Ambition + Love as a cause of suffering

“I do not fool myself to let imagination jade me…”

Answer 11

“for every reason excites to this; that my lady loves me.”
- Malvolio Act 2, Scene 5

Question 12

Love as a cause of suffering

“I thank my stars…”

Answer 12

“I am happy.”
- Malvolio, Act 2, Scene 5

Question 13

Ambition + Self Love

“Go hang thyselves, all…”

Answer 13

“you are idle, shallow things.”
- Malvolio Act 3, Scene 4

Question 14

Love + Foolishness

“This does make some obstruction in the blood,…”

Answer 14

“this cross-gartering, but what of that? If ti please the eye of one, it is with me as the true sonnet is : ‘Please one, and please all.”
- Malvolio Act 3, Scene 4

Willing to do absurd things for love

Question 16

Madness

“Sir Topas, never was a man…”

Answer 16

“thus wronged… they have laid me here in hideous darkness.”
- Malvolio Act 4, Scene 2

Question 17

Madness

“Fool, there was never man so…”

Answer 17

“notoriously abused, I am well in my wits, fool, as thou art.”
- Malvolio Act 4, Scene 2

Question 18

Madness

How does Malvolio sign his letter to Olivia?

Answer 18

“the madly used Malvolio”
- Act 5, Scene 1

Question 19

Love as a cause of suffering

“I’ll be revenged…”

Answer 19

“on the whole pack of you.”
- Act 5, Scene 1

Question 20

Self-love and ambition

“Malvolio is a hypocrite. Secretly he longs for…”

Answer 20

“the pleasures of this world and for the authority to control others.”
- Bevington

Question 21

Misrule, comic villain

“Malvolio is…”

Answer 21

“the ‘enemy of merriment’ and a ‘foe of theatre’”
- Bevington