The use of Dramatic Irony in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

The use of Dramatic Irony in William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, he makes extensive use of Dramatic Irony to induce laughter from the audience. According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, Dramatic, or Tragic, Irony is when a characters words convey a certain meaning to the audience, of which the character is unaware.

For example, in Scene two, lines sixty two and sixty three, the captain tells Viola that he will help her to deceive the Duke into believing that she is an Eunuch, and says that if he tells anyone, he may go blind. There is the Dramatic Irony of her disguise, as she fools everyone in Illyria into believing that she is a man. In Scene three, from about line five to line seven, Maria tells sir Toby that Olivia takes great exception to his being out so late, which basically means that she doesn’t like it. However. Sir Toby puns on the word “Excepted”, saying that she should leave him alone, and that she has taken enough exceptio...