Wednesday, August 7, 2013

What is an example of a pun in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night?

A pun is a play on words in which
you use two words that sound alike but have different meanings. Many puns can be found all
throughout Twelfth Night. Both Sir Toby and Feste especially make use of
puns. One pun spoken by Sir Toby can be found in the very first
scene in which we meet Sir Toby, Act 1, Scene 3. At the beginning of
this scene, Maria scolds him for his behavior, warning him that Olivia is very offended by his
nightly drunken revelries. She further advises, "[Y]ou must confine yourself within the modest
limits of order" (I.iii.7-8). Toby responds by making a pun out of
the word "confine." He interprets "confine" as "can
fine,"
which could be translated as referring to dressing one's self
up in finery
, as we see in his statement, "Confine? I'll confine myself no finer
than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in" (9-10). In this line, he is essentially
saying that he does not need to dress in finery to go out drinking. However, Maria meant to say
that he needs to restrict his behavior to acting civilly. Sir Toby, on the other hand, chooses to
ignore her by making a pun out of the word confine to refer to finery rather than
restrictions.

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