Twelfth Night Act 1 Scene 4: Summary & Analysis

In Act 1, scene 4, Viola perceives her connection with the duke differently than he. At the end of the scene, she reveals to the audience by talking to herself that she is actually in love with Orsino. Her situation is complicated because she has been fooling him into thinking she is a young man. Now, she is charged with the task of helping him connect with Olivia.

This situation is an example of dramatic irony, in which a character reveals information to the audience that other characters do not know. The audience knows that ''Cesario'' is actually Viola and so far, only the audience knows that Viola is in love with Orsino.

In Act 1, scene 4 of Twelfth Night, we see the first interaction between Orsino and Viola as Cesario. Orsino quickly regards Cesario as his best friend and begs her to go to Olivia and try to tell her how much Orsino loves her. Viola as Cesario agrees but after the duke has left, she talks to herself, admits that she is in love with Orsino herself, and is unhappy about the mission he sent her on. This scene contains a lot of dramatic irony, or information that the audience has that certain characters are oblivious to.