nother element that further affiliates Viola and Olivia as a pair is the fact that they are both in mourning, Viola for her twin Sebastian, and Olivia who morns a dead brother and father. In this sense grief is something that creates a reflection within them. Shakespeare’s employment of the pair of Viola and Olivia also plays with sexual possibilities as we know that Olivia has fallen for another woman and a man (Antonio) falls in love with another man but then mistakes a character pretending to be a man for the man he is in love with (mistakes Viola for Sebastian). This concept could be Shakespeare’s way of suggesting that “gender identity is in the eye of the beholder – a man is someone recognised and treated as a man rather than someone with a set biological identity.”

Another distinct pair within Twelfth Night is Olivia and Orsino. Both of these characters are comparable as they both convey analogous traits, the first one being the passion and love that both characters express. Olivia seems besotted with Cesario (Viola) and even attempts to beg that she is worthy of love “Cesario, by the roses of the spring….Love sought is good, but given unsought better.” (3.1. 148-155). This clearly shows how bold Olivia’s emotions are and how readily she expresses them. However, this love is questioned when she marries Sebastian purely because he resembles Cesario. Orsino simple yet complex, just like the woman he is in love with and pursues, Olivia. Just like Olivia, Orsino also omits strong passionate feelings of love “If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it…” (I.1.1). This hyperbolic and profligate first line of the entire play forefronts the theme of love between this pair. However it also presents Orsino as self absorbed as it is not until the end of this loving speech that we realise it is about Olivia. It also suggests that Orsino loves the thought of love and all that it embodies, perhaps not the person themselves. Once again this is a similarity between Olivia and Orsino as they both appear to boldly express love that may in fact be rather empty and unreal. This could suggest that people of the higher social status are more in love with the idea of love and marriage rather than actually falling in love with the right people, higher social class may therefore result in this case in a bigger ego. Orsino’s over use of romantic clichés based on unrequited love “my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, E/re since pursue me” (I.1.2