Crossing the Great Gender Divide

In last Friday’s post on Twelfth Night, I talked about how Shakespeare uses cross-dressing to acknowledge that men and women have dimensions to them that are not acknowledged by the standard male and female categories.  I understood this about the play at an early age.  In a past post on Twelfth Night, I describe how it spoke to me as a 12-year-old boy who was confused about his gender: while I was clearly a boy, I loved to read quietly, disliked football, and had a gentleness that I associated with girls.  I fell in love with Viola because she seemed to capture the split that I felt: outwardly male, inwardly female.

But that’s just one possible reaction to the play.  Other readers bring their own gender dramas to bear.  I have a bisexual woman friend who loved the scenes between Viola (when passing as a man) and Lady Oliva.  A homosexual male friend enjoys the interchanges between Count Orsino and a seemingly male Cesario (actually Viola).  My wife, meanwhile, likes the flexibility that Viola has when she dresses like a man—it reminds her of the freedom she longed for when growing up a girl in traditional Iowa.  (She likes these same interchanges between Orsino and Cesario only from the other direction: a girl getting to be one of the guys.)  In short, there are any number of identity fantasies that the play speaks to.

To quote the play’s subtitle, you can be “what you will” when you read or watch it.

I have therefore come up with an exercise I call “Travel Tips for Crossing the Great Gender Divide.”  Because of its fluid gender fantasies, Twelfth Night can point us to new ways of thinking about ourselves and interacting with others.  To unlock the play’s liberating content as you read it, I recommend that you reflect upon those scenes where you can imagine a character as either a woman or a man.  Those scenes that appeal to you the most may be ones you can turn to as you work to shake free of the stereotypes that trap you.  Different readers will choose different scenes because we are varying mixtures of male and female and also find ourselves at different points on the heterosexuality-homosexuality spectrum.   The goal is not to be someone you are not but to discover who you in fact are, which may mean acknowledging sides of yourself that you have pushed under.  Following are five points of reference. 

1.  Men acknowledging that they have a female side
You relate to Cesario and feel yourself to have a female sensibility, even though the world thinks you male.  You appreciate how, despite her male exterior, Viola is able to respond to Orsino with womanly empathy and to Olivia with womanly understanding.  You also relate to her discomfort at being confronted by male aggression (Sir Toby).  Perhaps her transforming into a woman at the end of the play captures your own secret fantasies of becoming a woman.

2. Women acknowledging that they have a male side
You are drawn to the scenes where Viola exercises “male” initiative, whether by dressing as a man, aggressively courting Olivia (on behalf of Orsino), or establishing comradeship with Orsino.  Perhaps you relish her seeming transformation from a helpless woman (in the first duel encounter) to one who, tapping into her inner Sebastian, can hold her own (in the subsequent two).

3.  Men acknowledging that they have a desire for other men
You focus on the Orsino/Cesario relationship, especially when Orsino praises Cesario’s beauty.  Perhaps you see, in Cesario’s longing to reveal “himself” to Orsino, a man wrestling with the social barriers that prevent one man from telling another of his love.  Perhaps you enjoy the moment in the square where Orsino is able to publicly declare his love for someone you can imagine being a man.

In this section, I would also add the tragic figure of Antonio, who doesn’t hide his love for Sebastian, even though that love is unreciprocated.  (Sebastian is friendly and grateful to Antonio but also seems to keep a distance and chooses to marry a woman.)  Antonio feels rejected by Sebastian (actually Viola) on the public street, and he is alone, perhaps even still in chains, when all the heterosexual sorting is completed at the end of the play.

4.  Women acknowledging that they have a desire for other women
You enjoy watching Olivia’s passion for Viola and also enter into Viola’s admiration of Olivia’s beauty.  Perhaps you even imagine Sebastian as Viola in disguise, dodging the authorities to come together in a forbidden marriage.

5.  Bypassing the entire gender divide
You get a kick out of watching Sir Toby and Maria acting as equals and not letting gender get in their way.  Perhaps it brings to mind childhood memories of playing freely with the opposite gender.  You wish that all gender relations could be this simple and aren’t sure that anything is gained by their getting married at the end.

Just as Twelfth Night is a carnival of disguises and identity shifting, it encourages a carnival of responses.  The reader’s challenge is to own up to his or her own reactions and figure out what they mean.