12th night act 1

Does anyone sympathize with Viola?

I like viola's character and I feel bad for her. She's ship wrecked in a foreign land and she thinks her brother's dead making her the only surviving member of her family. she is incredibly resilient. i can't believe that she would have the balls to dress up like a man to survive. that had to be hard for her to play the role especially after she fell in love with the Duke. Being a woman and having to conceal you true emotions can be a killer. she must have been going crazy in her head. I think that's why she said," to woo your lady yet a barful strife whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife." I watched the movie Alive last night and those young men did some crazy stuff to survive. If you've never seen it they revert to cannibalism to survive they were stranded for like 80 days with no food, who could blame them? it's either eat flesh or die of starvation. good thing Shakespeare decided to make 12Th night a love story and not an action thriller. I don't think it was morally wrong in this case for Viola to choose deception to survive. I think that if Viola hadn't been found out by someone else she would have eventually taken her disguise off because of the Duke. This makes me think of how one portrays themselves to others. in Violas world she was a woman acting like a man. everyone who mattered to her( the duke) thought she was something that she really wasn't a man. and she couldn't tell him other wise because she had to survive. she had a choice either survive being man and be unhappy or tell the truth and see what happens.