MALVOLIO

an ambitious steward of Olivia's household in William Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night. Joyless, moralistic, and intolerant of others' pleasures, Malvolio (whose name means ill will) is the ideal gull for practical jokes. One of the more complex of Shakespeare's gallery of moody outsiders, Malvolio sometimes is considered to be a portrait of the pompous and self-righteous Puritanthe type of killjoy who was trying to shut down the Elizabethan theatres.