lunacy, instability and delirious musings

Viola: I am the man (II.ii.25)

This is just plain comedy and it is seems to be the biggest joke in the whole play. Viola is not a man, actually. She is a woman. The audience knows that, and we know that... But the other characters don't know that. I can already predict this is going to cause a lot of mayhem throughout the closing of the play.

Malvolio: ...and yet to crush it a little, it would bow to me (II.v.143-145)

Malvolio is reading the letters on the post script, whicih are MOAI and he says that if he were to rearranged and change his name just a little, they are the letters of his name and therefore it is referring to him. It shows his desperation and for his "lady" and his delusion of how he can fit into the equation, when in fact the equation has no answer and equates to nothing.

Viola: Then you think your right. I am not what I am.

Olivia: I would you were as I would have you be. (III.i.148-9)

Olivia does not know that Viola is really a women so when Olivia tells Viola she isn't what she is, Viola replies, 'you're right, I'm not what I am.' So Olivia doesn't know what what this exclamation really means, which is that she is really a woman. She claims that she wishes Viola was what she wants her to be. This is very ironic because Olivia is talking is the correct context, but she doesn't not know the truth. Unfortunately, Viola could never be what Olivia wants her to be and Viola does not in fact know who she is.