In William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night the main characters of the play are continuously searching for love. At the commencement of the play, a perplexing love affair begins to unfold. With Duke Orsino in love with Lady Olivia, Olivia in love with Cesario who is actually a woman, and Viola completing the circuitous affair through her love for Orsino, an intricate triangle begins to form. Sebastian later takes the place of the feigned Cesario and helps to mend the disorderly combination. As the play develops, so do the personalities of the main characters causing the menage a trois to transform into two loving couples. Due to the initial motives of the characters, deception in conjunction with development, and the revelation of truth, each of the main characters ends up with someone other than the person that they initially "loved".
             At the beginning of the play, Orsino begins by saying, "If music be the food of love, play on;/ Give me excess of it, that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die"(1.1.1-3). Through saying this, Orsino reveals his premature motive for love and implies that he is a man in love with love itself. After this incident, along comes Viola having just narrowly escaped a shipwreck. She was in a land foreign to her, under the impression that her twin brother Sebastian had drowned, and was an unattended woman by herself facing the large possibility of being taken advantage of. Viola needed protection and Duke Orsino could offer that.
             I'll prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
             For such disguise as haply as shall become
             The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke.
             Thou shalt present me as a eunuch to him (1.2.52-56)
             In order for Viola to avoid being taken advantage of, "love", although superficial at first, begins to develop for Orsino and later transforms into genuine love.
             The love that Olivia acquires for Viola is less due to circumstance and more to a lack of realism and ma...