UW THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE
A Happy Ending? Malvolio, Mental Illness, and Cruelty in Twelfth Night, or What You Will
“I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.”
Elizabeth Everitt
Although Twelfth Night, or What You Will ends with celebration and romantic pairings, Malvolio leaves humiliated and angry. This article explores my digital self-portrait, A Happy Ending?, as a way to examine Malvolio’s emotional journey , the treatment of madness in the play, and the unequal distribution of happiness at the end of the comedy.
My digital self-portrait uses photography, colour, and personal reflection to question how the people in the world of Twelfth Night, or What You Will treat Malvolio and whether its ending is happy for everyone.
In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Malvolio is often remembered as a comic figure whose pride makes him an easy target for a prank. However, his story becomes more troubling when the other characters deceive, humiliate, and confine him. While the play ends with a relationship and celebration for several characters, Malvolio leaves promising revenge. My digital self-portrait, A Happy Ending?, explores this contrast and asks: who gets the happy ending? Through research and digital editing, I wanted to create a reflection on Malvolio that encourages the audience to look beyond his comic role before seeing the production.
Through my self-portrait, I explore how Twelfth Night, or What You Will uses madness as part of its comedy while also revealing the harm caused when a person’s behavior is misunderstood, ridiculed, and used against them. By focusing on Malvolio’s confinement and humiliation, I question whether the play’s treatment of him allows its ending to be considered truly happy. Rather than diagnosing Malvolio with a modern mental health condition, my project encourages audiences to consider how the play portrays madness and how treating someone as an object of ridicule affects their dignity and sense of belonging
Maria’s forged letter convinces Malvolio that Olivia loves him. He follows its instructions, including wearing yellow stockings and behaving in a way he believes will please her (Shakespeare 2.5.157). The audience knows the letter is a trick, so his behaviour becomes a source of comedy. However, the prank escalates beyond embarrassment. In Act 4, Scene 2, Feste disguises himself as Sir Topas and speaks to Malvolio while he is confined in darkness. Malvolio insists that he is not mad, but Feste dismisses his explanations and continues the deception (Shakespeare 4.2.40-43).
Joost Daalder’s article “Perspectives of Madness in Twelfth Night” provides a useful framework for understanding this scene. Daalder examines how Shakespeare uses the language of madness throughout the play and questions what madness means in this context. He argues that Malvolio’s confinement also exposes the cruelty of a society that locks people away and thatFeste’s performance as Sir Topas mocks what should be a serious examination (Daalder 109-10).
Daalder’s analysis helped me consider the difference between a character being described as mad and the way that character is actually treated. Malvolio’s confinement is not an attempt to understand his distress; it becomes another way to control and ridicule him. I do not intend to diagnose Malvolio with a modern mental health condition. Instead, the scene encourages the audience to question how accusations of madness can undermine a person’s dignity and turn suffering into entertainment.
My self-portrait uses two photographs of myself to represent contrasting emotional experiences. The colourful side, with its floral dress, suggests hope, confidence, and belonging. The black and white side represents Malvolio’s humiliation and isolation. I kept a yellow flower-shaped hair clip in colour as a reference to his yellow stockings, linking the image visually to the play. The two sides remain part of the same face, suggesting that a person can experience different emotions rather than being defined by one feeling.
The image is not intended to suggest that sadness automatically means mental illness. Instead, it asks viewers to consider how someone’s distress can be misunderstood or turned into entertainment. Malvolio moves from confidence and ambition to hope, humiliation, isolation, and anger. His final declaration, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” (Shakespeare 5.1.400), suggests that he does not experience the same resolution as the other characters. His story therefore challenges the assumption that a comedy’s happy ending brings happiness to everyone.
Creating the image in Photoshop required me to position the photographs carefully and blend them using a layer mask. I wanted the transition between the two sides to look intentional without losing the expressions. The black-and-white effect helped distinguish Malvolio’s side, while the yellow clip remained a visual link to the play. These choices allowed me to communicate my interpretation through photography rather than relying entirely on written explanation.
My own experience also shaped how I approached Malvolio. At parties where drinking alcohol is a major part of the social atmosphere, I sometimes feel left out because I do not drink. When people bond through drinking, I can feel outside the group even when I want to be included. This experience differs greatly from Malvolio’s humiliation and confinement, but it helped me reflect on the broader feeling of wanting to belong while being treated as an outsider.
I do not suggest that the two situations are equivalent. Instead, my experience gave me a personal starting point for thinking about exclusion. Malvolio’s story demonstrates how a group can turn one person into a source of amusement. My own reflections encouraged me to look beyond the joke and consider the person experiencing it. THis connection helped shape the emotional contrast in my self-portrait: one side suggests participation in happiness, while the other presents exclusion from it.
Toby Malone and Brett Greatley-Hirsch’s “Digital Shakespeare” helped me consider how digital technology creates new ways for people to engage with Shakespeare’s work. The abstract discusses how digital technologies influence the publication of Shakespeare’s texts and the performance of his plays, including through social media, visual realities, video games and digital reconstructions, This connection to my digital self-portrait, A Happy Ending?, because I used photography and digital editing to communicate an interpretation of Twelfth Night. Rather than providing only written information about Malvolio, my image uses colour, symbolism, and contrasting expressions to encourage audiences to think about his emotional journey. My project demonstrates one way digital media can incite audiences to approach a familiar play from a different perspective before seeing a production.
For audiences, the image creates an opportunity to reconsider the play’s ending. Daalder’s discussion of madness supports a closer examination of Malvolio’s confinement and the cruelty behind the joke. Rather than telling viewers what to think, the images invite them to question why his suffering becomes entertainment and why his story ends differently from those of the other characters. By combining visual storytelling, research, and personal reflection, my contribution aims to make the Dramaturgy Hub a place where audiences can explore questions before the performance begins.
Ultimately, A Happy Ending? encourages the audience to look beyond Malvolio as a comic character and consider the consequences of humiliation, exclusion, and being labelled mad. The image returns to the question that inspired my project: if one character is left isolated while everyone else celebrates, can the ending truly be happy for everyone?
Daalder, Joost. “Perspectives of Madness in Twelfth Night.” Perspectives of madness in twelfth night, March 1997, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248915724_Perspectives_of_madness_intwelfth_night. Accessed 13 10 2026.
Malone, Toby, and Brett Greatley-Hirsch. “Digital Shakespeare.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, Oxford University Press, 28 June 2021, https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61883/chapter abstract/547769091?redirectedFrom=ful ltext
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night from The Folger Shakespeare. Edited by Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles, Folger Shakespeare Library, 21 Oct. 2026, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/twelfth-night/.
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. Adapted by Tim Welham, 2026.