Twelfth Night We tend to read Twelfth Night as a play about love because we have all grown up being told that this is what comedies are about. But comedies are at least as much about the possibility that lives can take unexpected turns – precisely the opposite message that Shakespeare presents us with in his tragedies. In a work like Othello, the characters are so rigidly tied to the ways in which society perceives them that they have no power to redeem themselves. The world of the playwright’s comedies suggests that it is precisely the absence of a rigid sense of socially imposed identity (whether along the lines of gender, race or class) that allows for happiness both for the individual and for society as a whole. Pages: 9 Bibliography: 3 source(s) listed Filename: 20099 Shakespeare Gender Viola.doc Price: 80.55