Viola/Cesario

Question 1

What are some traits of Viola?

Answer 1

• likeable
• main protagonist
• charming
• resourceful
• witty
• practical
• intelligent

Question 2

Boundaries crossed by Viola?

Answer 2

• gender
• life and death
• geographical
• emotional

Question 3

“What country, friends, is this?”

Answer 3

Act 1 Scene 2
- pragmatic
- resourceful
- resilient approach

Question 4

“I’ll serve this duke”

Answer 4

Act 1 Scene 2
- declarative
- subverts gender expectations
- powerful, controls her fate

Question 5

“What I am and what I would are as secret as maidenhead”

Answer 5

Act 1 Scene 5
- simile
- parallel phrasing
- admits to disguise

Question 6

“Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness”

Answer 6

Act 2 Scene 2
- personification
- contemplating the unintended consequences of her disguise
- metaphor
- conflicted
- criticising her own idea
- questioning her morals

Question 7

“And I, poor monster, fond as much on him”

Answer 7

Act 2 Scene 2
- pre modifier
- feels bad for herself
- claiming women’s hearts are easy to deceive
- loves Orsino as much as he loves Olivia

Question 8

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I; it is too hard a knot for me to untie!”

Answer 8

Act 2 Scene 2
- metaphor
- exclamatory, heightened emotions
- tying knot is a reference to marriage, foreshadows Olivia’s unrequited love
- feels bound and restricted by disguise
- time is personified, distancing herself from the problem
- personal pronouns reflect how it is her conflict

Question 9

“Where love is throned”

Answer 9

Act 2 Scene 4
- abstract noun
- metaphor
- love is a rich persons indulgence. love is the ruler

Question 10

“I am almost sick for one”

Answer 10

Act 3 Scene 1
- sick for Orsino
- wishes she were a man to avoid desired relationship

Question 11

“I am not what I am”

Answer 11

Act 3 Scene 1
- parallel phrasing
- oxymoron
- hinting to disguise

Question 12

“I am no fighter”

Answer 12

Act 3 Scene 4
- minor sentence
- crosses gender boundary
- lack of will to fight is a feminine trait, alludes to her disguise

Question 13

“Pray God defend me!”

Answer 13

Act 3 Scene 4
- calling for religious guidance
- desperate
- wants to escape the reality of the duel

Question 14

“I am Viola, which to confirm i’ll bring you to a captain”

Answer 14

Act 5 Scene 1
- revealing identity
- declarative

Question 15

“What else may hap to time I will commit. Only shape thou thy silence to my wit”

Answer 15

Act 1 Scene 2
- rhyming couplet, link back to Orsino
- deceiving, set on her intentions

Question 16

“Yet, a barful strife! Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife”

Answer 16

Act 1 Scene 4
- irony, wants to be who she’s distanced herself from
- exposing her internal thoughts to the audience
- unhappy because she likes Orsino
- creates sympathy within the audience because Viola’s love is unrequited AND unattainable

Question 17

“In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms”

Answer 17

Act 2 Scene 2
- Implies women are frail, easily impressionable
- Opposite of empowering women.
- suggests women are at fault for their own frailty, which has been proven wrong by characters such as Olivia and Maria

Question 18

“As it might be perhaps, were I a woman”

Answer 18

Act 2 Scene 4
- refers to her identity issues and disguise
- possible reference to transvestite comedies: were popular in Elizabethan era, which required young men to dress up and play as women in the theatre as they had high and softer voices because of the undesirable views on theatre for women

Question 19

“Cesario is your servants name, fair princess”

Answer 19

Act 3 Scene 1
- referring to herself in the third person
- pre modifier

Question 20

“Madam, I come to whet on your gentle thoughts”

Answer 20

Act 3 Scene 1
- pre modifier gentle reinforces stereotypical femininity. ironic
- connotes women as vulnerable

Question 21

“I pity you.”

Answer 21

Act 3 Scene 1
- declarative
- verb
- feminine response, breaking disguise
- compassionate, can relate to how Olivia feels
- feels sorry because she cannot tell the truth

Question 22

“For now I am your fool”

Answer 22

Act 3 Scene 1
- love makes characters foolish, changes their behaviour and actions
- noun

Question 23

“I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth”

Answer 23

Act 3 Scene 1
- repetition
- ironic because she’s in disguise