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Viola vs. Rosalind
William Shakespeare is one of the best, as well as most famous, writer of all time: with his
finger in many different pots, for example his famous sonnets as well as a playwright,
however it appears he reuses the same plot devices—to be specific, that of a woman
dressing up as males. Shakespeare orchestrates the plot device of cross-dressing many
times throughout his works, with perhaps the two most well known being Rosalind, from
As You Like It, and Viola, within Twelfth Night. These two characters share that they both
cross-dress, as well as they are both strong willed characters, incidentally bypassing the
traditional roles of women; however, forces beyond their control have shaped them
differently, therefore they are differentiated through what they do.
Perhaps the most striking similarity between Rosalind and Viola is that both characters
were led to cross-dressing, granted through different forces. Rosalind, banished into the
Forest of Arden, disguises herself as Ganymede. Viola, on the other hand, disguises herself
as a male servant Cesario in order to work and serve the Duke as she mourns for her
brother, of whom she fears to be dead. However, despite the course of the play, she
discovers that he is in actuality alive.
Sebastian: I never had a brother, nor can there be the deity in my nature of here and
everywhere. I had a sister, whom the blind waves and surges have devoured. Of charity,
what kin are you to me? What countryman? What name? What parentage?
Viola: Of Messaline; Sebastian was my father; such a Sebastian was my brother too; so
went he suited to his watery tomb. If spirits can assume both form and suit, you come to
fright us.
Sebastian: A spirit I am indeed, but am in that dimension grossly clad which from the
womb I did participate. Were you a woman, as the rest goes even, I should my tears let fall
upon your cheek and say, ‘Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!’
Viola: My father had a mole upon his brow.
Sebastian: And so had mine.
Viola: And died that day when Viola from her birth had numb’red thirteen years.
Sebastian: O that record is lively in my soul! He finished indeed his mortal act that day
that made my sister thirteen years.
Viola: If nothing elts to make us happy both but this my masculine usurped attire, do not
embrace me till each circumstance of place, time, fortune do cohere and jump that I am
