Before the Final Bow

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night comes to an end with each character revealing their true identity.  Sebastian and Viola are reunited.  The brother and sister pair quickly quiz one another on their family to make for certain they are from the same family.  Cesario reveals she is not a man, but rather Viola.  Olivia is particularly disturbed after she thought she was already married to Cesario.  Orsino (with not even a pause) expresses his true undeniable feelings for Viola.  And lets not forget about the crazed Malvolio who realizes Olivia never loved him, but rather he was once again fooled by false love.  The big "reveal" creates a sense of clarity for the characters, perhaps even a moment of realization at their silliness.  The true clown about town, Feste, recognizes their utter lack of sanity still as Malvolio storms off and Orsino quickly falls in love with someone he once thought to be a man.  Feste quotes from the letter, "Why, 'some are born great, some achieve/ greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon/ them" (V. i. 372-374). Feste is commenting on their lack of greatness!  The characters did not achieve any great feat by finally coming to their senses about people's real identity.  The characters may have been born into noble (great) families.  Yet, the characters do not have greatness thrown upon them for in this comedy the characters simply fall in and out of love.  Feste points to how the characters still see what is "outer beauty" (thinking everyone is a regulation hottie).  As the play came to end, one could almost feel the resolution right around the corner.  Being in the audience we have the inside scoop on what is going with the characters so we are able to laugh at their silly mistakes and nonsensical reasoning.  But as the play ends, Feste sings, "But that's all one, our play is done,/And we'll strive to please you every day"(V. i. 409-411).  Upon reading the final lines, I thought wait is the joke on me? Did all of these players seemingly dupe me? Shakespeare uses metatheatre in the sense of play or masque presented as part of the larger plot.  The use of metatheatre at the end of the play highlights how a masque or a "disguise" has been used as part of the larger plot to fool the audience.  The characters all along knew they were acting.  Shakespeare may have meant to teach the audience a lesson about laughing at another human's misperceptions and mistakes.  Shakespeare played a joke of his own on an unsuspecting audience.  Moreover, Shakespeare established a principle of being careful with love.  Shakespeare showed how stupid and unreasonable love could be.   Love should be well reasoned and meaningful!