Twelfth Night: Top Scoring Sample Essay on Fixed Identity

'Twelfth Night, or What You Will, subverts notions of fixed identity.' To what extent do you agree?

A full length (~1,000 word) essay covering:

•      Inverted gender roles at the opening, with Orsino as a parodic Petrarchan lover, Olivia rejecting the marriage economy, and Viola's confession that she is not what she plays

•      The costs of remaking the self, in Olivia's misdirected desire and Malvolio's collapse under the lure of social advancement

•      An incomplete restoration of order, as Antonio and Malvolio are excluded from the marriage plot, and Maria's ingenuity is repaid with a wedding

Written by a 47-scoring student (2025 graduate) who was rank top 5 at their school. Features highly complex vocabulary. Includes Elizabethan context on Saturnalian licence and Puritan satire. All contextual features are embedded in and relevant to the analysis.