Which Character Faces the Greatest Challenges in the Play Twelfth Night ? Defend Your Answer.

The play twelfth night, though largely a comedy, has it's fair share of challenges and obstacles which it's characters face throughout the plot. These revolve around love, honour and the death and loss of loved ones. However one character stands out to me as having faced the most difficult and trying of challenges, yet emerged with her pride and dignity intact. She coped well with all the problems that were thrown at her with a quiet resilience far beyond her years, and is worthy of our admiration.

Viola as Cesario faced the most challenges in the play. It almost seems that fate never leaves her alone, as her difficulties start as soon as we are introduced to her, washed up upon the shores of illyria having barely survived a shipwreck. Alone in a foreign land with her only kin, her twin brother Sebastian believed to be dead, she is left to fend for herself for, or so it seemed, the remainder of her days.

For any young female, this would be a devastating situation to be thrown into, and viola was no exception. Apart from having to deal with the loss of her brother, she also had to find a way to survive in illyria. Perhaps this is where the resilience in viola's nature is first shown - instead of breaking down and mourning bitterly the death of her loved one, she immediately devises a plan to disguise herself as a male and serve duke orsino.

But unfortunately for viola, fate was not on her side, and this disguise which was meant to assist her only turned out to be a bigger burden in time to come.

Complications also arose when viola fell in love with her master, duke orsino, while at the same time had the love interest of orsino, the countess Olivia, trying to woo her. This placed viola in an extremely difficult and complex situation - on one hand, she loved the duke and would have liked to do all she could to win his heart. But because she was his servant, she was obliged to serve him and help him win the hand of Olivia. What was a poor girl to do ?

She was left confused, knowing that whatever she did would end up hurting somebody. Her kind and sensitive nature allowed her to sympathize with Olivia, and she declares 'what thriftless sighs poor Olivia shall breathe !'. That she took olivia's feelings into consideration shows that while she loved the duke, she did not want to hurt Olivia as well. This would undoubtedly caused viola much emotional turmoil as there was really no easy way out of that situation. Yet she continually ruminates over it, saying 'poor lady, she were better love a dream', and ''It is too hard a knot me to untie.'

Yet while trying to fend of olivia's constant admissions of love in a subtle and delicate way, she also had intense feelings for the duke, who, caught up in his unrequited love for Olivia failed to notice the hints that she continually dropped. It was a blow to viola for the man she loved to ignore her like that simply because he loved, or thought he loved somebody else.

As it is, admitting her love for orsino, albeit indirectly, must have taken courage, especially in Elizabethan times where women were not known for attempting to court men. Moreover, one can see from her descriptions that she is truly pining for the duke(only unable to show it in everyday life), she describes herself 'with green and yellow melancholy she sat like Patience on a monument smiling at grief'

Yet despite all her attempts, everything she said was cruelly shot down by the duke who claimed that there was 'no compare between that love a woman can bear me and that I owe Olivia'. Although he