What You Will: Double Predestination and the Plot of Twelfth Night

Abstract

What awaits Malvolio after the conclusion of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a contentious topic in scholarship. Some scholars, such as Marjorie Garber, contend that he is the sole character excluded from the comedy’s joyous ending, while others, such as Alastair Fowler, contend that the play suggests an ultimate reconciliation. This essay will contend that Shakespeare deliberately leaves Malvolio’s destiny ambiguous and undecidable. Drawing from historical texts such as John Calvin’s works and the Geneva Bible, it will argue that Twelfth Night attacks the Puritans, who themselves often attacked the institution of the theatre and opposed such festal occasions as Epiphany, which the play celebrates. The comedy accomplishes this attack by subverting a key Puritan doctrine: double predestination. Malvolio’s potential exclusion or inclusion at the concluding wedding feast, following biblical imagery, becomes symbolic of reprobation and election. As Malvolio’s character is left thoroughly ambiguous throughout the play, and as the play ends with Olivia’s offer of reconciliation to Malvolio—which is neither accepted nor rejected within the play itself—the emphasis is placed upon Malvolio’s free will to determine his future, and, by extension, his eschatological state. Hence, the cost of the Puritan’s symbolic redemption is his very Puritanism.