Twelfth Night: Top Scoring Sample Essay on Pain and joy

'In Twelfth Night, or What You Will, pain is experienced as often as joy.' Discuss.

A full length (~950 word) essay covering:

•      Love as a source of both suffering and farce, in Orsino's self indulgent lament, Olivia's veil as a metatheatrical prop, and Viola's grief

•      Joy derived from the pain of others, through Malvolio's gulling, his imprisonment in "hideous darkness", and the audience's own complicity in Illyria's sadism

•      An ending that is neither happy nor sad, as the fickle marriages give way to Feste's reminder of how life goes on

Written by a 47-scoring student (2025 graduate) who was rank top 5 at their school. Features highly complex vocabulary. Renaissance context on the humour of melancholy, and consistent attention to how comedy and cruelty operate simultaneously.