Shakespeare highlights that women and men have different priorities when it comes to finding someone worth marrying. At the beginning of this play, the audience witnesses the beginning of a love triangle between the Duke Orsino, Olivia, whom the Duke is in love with and, “Cesario,” who is actually Viola acting as a male servant for the Duke and loves the Duke but whom Olivia has …show more content…
Later in the same scene, when Olivia wishes to know more about the young messenger Cesario, she asks, “What is [his] parentage?” (1.5.281), further proving the point that women are only interested in status. In contrast, men in Twelfth Night tend to love in a more profound and passionate way. When speaking to Viola about his love for Olivia, the Duke says, “…no woman’s heart can bide the as doth give my heart” (2.4.104-105). And when trying to communicate to Viola how Olivia makes him feel, the Duke madly says, “I am, [as] all true lovers are, unstaid and skittish in all motions… save in the constant image of the… beloved.”(2.4.19-22) This expresses how Shakespeare gives the male characters a more all-consuming type of love rather than the seemingly immature love women