can completely transform a grown man.
The impression I got when I read the play was that it
was making a very clear statement about men and women
and the roles they play. In Jacobean society women
were very much the underdogs- they needed to be pretty
or at least useful so that they might find a husband.
Once they were married they were acceptable, they were
safe from gossip and tittle-tattle. They were not
different people, they did not go to church any more
than they had done when they were single and they did
not dress any differently than before. They were just
married, they had a man and because of this they were
okay.
Shakespeare, living in this time of sexual inequality,
turns this theory on it’s head. He made this character
who is strong, passionate, who makes things happen. A
character who is willing to battle for what they want
and gets it. And this character is a woman.
“Egypt, thou knew’st too well,
My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ strings,
And thou should’st stow me after.”
Cleopatra runs and Antony runs after her, he has no
choice, his heart is bound to her. I feel the play
reveals how powerful women are, but in an understated
way. Repressed by Jacobean society, they were forced
to play an inferior role to men, but Shakespeare is
suggesting that women can be courageous and confident,
that perhaps underneath their timidity, every woman has
the might to do it her way.
Cleopatra does it her way and plays out the role of the
masculine figure in the relationship. She has Antony
eating out of her hand, she tempts him away from his
wife and makes a fool out of him. And he doesn’t care.
“Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the rang’d Empire fall: here is my space,”
Antony is so in love with Cleopatra that he would, and
does, give up everything for her love. The interesting
thing about their relationship is trying to discover
what the true feeling of both parties are. We have
Antony, swearing love to Cleopatra declaring there is
nothing in the world he wants more. And yet he marries
another woman, he says desperately that he ‘must from
this enchanting Queen break off’. Then Cleopatra, who
the audience is persuaded to see as a temptress, a
seductress who is only interested in using Antony. She
plays games with him- ‘If you find him sad, Say I am
dancing’- and
she appears to be acting behind his back for her own
interests.
“Hast thou no care of me, shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty?”
However at the end, as he lies dying in her arms, we
can see how passionately she loved him, how much she
was hurt by his marrying Octavia.
Octavia is a key player in this game, although at first
we don’t identify her as such.
“She creep: her motion, ad her station are as one,
She shows a body, rather than a life,
A statue, than a breather”.
She is bland in comparison to Cleopatra, who we
recognise as our heroine, and we do not feel bonded to
her. However she is perhaps an obvious example of how
the rules of Jacobean society was snubbed by
Shakespeare. Octavia is the ideal wife according to
the rules. She is beautiful and virtuous and
everything Antony needs in a wife. But he cannot and
will not love her. He will ‘to his Egyptian dish
again’- he cannot get enough of Cleopatra.
Enobarbus is a useful tool in the play, as he provides
us with an inside running commentary. He is known for
speaking the truth and does so when describing
Cleopatra.
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety”
Octavia may be virtuous and beautiful and charming but
Cleopatra is exciting and enchanting and enthralling.
She is the only woman ever to grip Antony’s heart and
not let go, she is his match and because of this there
is never going to be another woman for him, nor,
consequently, will she ever be able to do without him.
In Elizabeth Wurtzel’s ‘Bitch’ she says of Cleopatra
“her charisma came from a deeper well within, then her
weapon is her allure”. Cleopatra, using her
metaphorical net of charm and glamour and allure,
caught Antony and stopped his escape.
In the Jacobean era, Antony and Cleopatra must have
been shocking. The thought that a woman could have
that kind of control over a Triumvir, a man of
explosive power and privilege, was outrageous. At the
time the play was written, Queen Elizabeth I was on the
throne. In normal circumstances, this would have been
seen as an outrageous act- giving a woman such power.
However Elizabeth
behaved much like her male counterparts, fighting in
war and leading a life of celibacy.
Cleopatra did not behave like a queen. She used her
power to play games, she flaunted her wealth and
laughed at those who scorned her. She was not proper
and not ‘right’. But I feel it was also probably very
satisfying to see. For once a woman was not only an
equal but a superior and she manipulated a man to get
her way. ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ was successful because
it was entertaining, because it was new and foreign.
People didn’t have to accept it because it was art, it
was okay to enjoy this without worrying about how
factual it was. Also this was a different culture.
Cleopatra could be passed off as a foreigner without
self control. She was not a threat because she was an
Egyptian and did not endanger the English way of life.
Certainly men thought in a certain way that would have
found Cleopatra’s power insulting. Swetnam was a man
with firm beliefs as to how women should be treated by
society. He points out that Moses said that woman was
to be man’s helper, made of his rib. He then goes on
to suggest that as ribs are naturally crooked, women
are ‘crooked by nature’. This is probably for the most
part, exaggerated, but it is still an indication of how
men felt about women. They were not images of
robustness or might- they were second class citizens-
the helpers of men.
In today’s society things are very different. ‘Girl
power’ is raging- women are getting better jobs,
earning more money and making men roll over for them.
When actress Galleon Anderson discovered her co star
David Duchovny was earning more than she was for an
equal role, she demanded identical pay and got it.
Nowadays women are benefiting from the sexual
revolution and ideas about the sexes are far removed
from those in Shakespeare’s day.
But this does not take anything away from ‘Antony and
Cleopatra’. It still has the classic forbidden love
story, the tears and the death and the one thing that
made the play so shocking all those years ago is still
very much a factor. In a time when women are equal,
Cleopatra is still more. She is better, she is the
best, and women are still striving to do that, to be
better than their men. Ally McBeal is a classic
example of the ‘two sides of the coin’. She is a
highly successful career woman, earning a great deal of
money, living in her own apartment. Yet she is
constantly in search of a man to make her feel whole.
She wants a husband and baby and a family to settle
down with.
In this way she is much like Cleopatra. This Egyptian
Queen has the world at her feet, everything she could
ever desire, yet she is defeated by a single man. He
reverts her to the classic Jacobean woman- needing a
man to feel complete. Women have still not reached a
period where they can just be the best, can take
control and make men need them.
However Cleopatra is not all strength and brilliance.
Jacobean tragedy was always headed by a hero, so
powerful and special, but with one major, and usually
fatal, flaw. The hero is brought down by his greed or
arrogance or pride. In Antony’s case it was his love
for Cleopatra which brought him to his knees. But, as
we already know, Antony shared his spotlight equally
with Cleopatra, so she too must have her flaw if she is
to fit into the stereotypical ‘Jacobean tragedy’ genre.
Her main weakness, coincidentally, is Antony but the
audience only gets small glimpses of the flaw, making
it so much more surprising when she too is conquered.
It is consistently hinted that her love us true but we
get to see it most clearly when Antony leaves Cleopatra
for Rome. This is also true of Cleopatra’s other
flaws. Antony is like a spotlight in the dark, the
only thing capable of picking up on defects. When they
are together, Cleopatra is feisty and vivacious. But
when he leaves her, we can see that her insecurity, her
aggression, her fear of being alone are highlighted by
his absence.
“That I might sleep out this great gap of time:
My Antony is away.”
She is willing to sleep away all the time he is away
because she can’t bear the thought of him being there.
She wonders where he is, what he’s doing, if he’s
riding or sitting. She so lovelorn, she remarks she
will send messages every day or ‘unpeople Egypt’. And
in the end, of course, she kills herself because Antony
is dead. I think this adds a certain vulnerability to
Cleopatra’s character- it makes her seems less harsh,
less manipulative.
“Go to the fellow, good Alexas bid him
Report the features of Octavia: her years,
Her inclination, let him not leave out,
The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly.”
We gain a little understanding as to why she is the
way she is, why she resorts to such dirty tricks to woo
Antony. She is extremely weak underneath her toughened
exterior, which is why she can’t just have Antony love
her- he has to be completely defeated by her. Thus she
fits well into the ‘Jacobean hero’ role, tying in with
her masculine role in the relationship.
Thus, ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ is still as relevant today
as it was then because until women have reached the
‘better’ stage, Cleopatra will always be a template.
‘Antony and Cleopatra’ is many things but it basely a
love story and concentrates on the repercussions of
love. Shakespeare uses the basic relationship between
man and woman and creates a story so brilliant that it
has lasted to this day, where it still has an affect on
the audience. At the start of the play Antony
proclaims to his love Cleopatra, “We stand up peerless’
and I believe he is right.