William Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night in 1601, apparently to be performed on the twelfth feast day, the end of the Renaissance Christmas season. The play is one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s comedies and the use of doubles / pairing is a key theme within the play. Shakespeare uses pairing as a central dramaturgical devise, employing them to drive the plot, build character and also reflects on social and gender roles.

Shakespeare uses a double structure shrewdly within Twelfth Night, as it is built on two plots with their elements intersecting in Act III Scene IV with the deception of Malvolio and the duel between Sir Andrew and Viola. Until this point the two plots had been separated whilst still running parallel with each other, allowing pairs, doubles and reflections to be made between characters and situations, until the sub plot of tricking Malvolio affiliates with the main plot of Viola, Orsino and Olivia’s love triangle. In doing this, Shakespeare creates a perfect Volta to the play where the climax takes place. The two plots also create an ideal situation for structural juxtaposition. This play consisting of two plots therefore create a double narrative, the first main example of the reoccurring motif of doubles within Twelfth Night. The way Shakespeare puts scenes in a carefully planned out sequence creates genius dramatic irony and maintains the comic tone throughout as the audience always knows more than the characters do. However these layers of dramatic irony are sometimes lost within film adaptations of Twelfth Night for example in Trevor Nunn’s performance he delays the appearance of Sebastian, making Malvolio give the ring to Cesario after the scene between Olivia and Viola. Whilst this director decision adds realistic continuality it also results in the lack of dramatic irony at this point in the play.