Caleb Burdine

“Thus in Twelfth Night the fact that Malvolio is called demon-possessed, and is associated with the devil over and over again, points to his thematic role in the play. Like Satan, he is sick with self-love, falling by the force of his own gravity, as Chesterton said. Of course, Malvolio is a comic devil, not nearly so threatening as Iago or Shylock, but he is a devil nonetheless. And his devilry is manifest particularly in his desire to end the gaiety of Olivia’s house. Here especially the title of the play comes into its own. Twelfth Night is named for the last night of the Christmas season, the final celebration of the Incarnation. It is a night for carnival, for suspension of the serious and structured. Malvolio wants to stop the merriment, and so it is fitting that he is ultimately excluded from it. But more: Malvolio is not only excluded from the comic climax of the play. He is excluded and overcome through trickery, practical joking, mirth. Satan digs a pit for the merry, but Satan falls into the very pit of merriment. And it tortures him forever. In the final analysis, that is the practical import of all that has been said in this little book: the joy of Easter, the joy of resurrection, the joy of trinitarian life does not simply offer an alternative “worldview” to the tragic self-inflation of the ancients. Worked out in the joyful life of the Christian church, deep comedy is the chief weapon of our warfare. For in the joy of the Lord is our strength, and Satan shall be felled with “cakes and ale” and midnight revels.”
― Peter J. Leithart, Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, & Hope In Western Literature