Malvolio: The Puritan Who Wants to Be a Count

Malvolio is a steward who dreams of being a nobleman. He polices Toby and the other revellers because he disapproves of fun, but also because he resents people whose rank he covets. Maria sees this instantly. The forged letter she writes exploits exactly the right weakness: it tells him Olivia loves him, and he believes it without a moment's hesitation.

The yellow stockings scene in Act 3 Scene 4 is one of the funniest things Shakespeare wrote and one of the cruellest. Malvolio arrives cross-gartered and smiling at a grief-stricken Olivia, quoting the letter back at her. She concludes he has lost his mind. He has, in a way: his vanity has made him completely unable to read what is in front of him.

His imprisonment in Act 4 and his final exit in Act 5 ('I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you') land differently from the play's other endings. He has been genuinely wronged, even if he deserved some humiliation. Charles Lamb wrote in 1822 that Malvolio was 'not essentially ludicrous' and that his treatment crosses a line the comedy never quite recovers from.