EL150: Antony & Cleopatra Acts 1&2

Shakespeare "Antony and Cleopatra" Acts 1&2

In the first two acts of Shakespeare's historical tragedy, we see a great deal of underhandedness by Marc Antony, one of the triumvirs of Rome, along with the crazed acts of the Queen of the Nile. Being that the title of this play contains the word "Tragedy," we already know that everyone's going to end up dead at the end. This isn't usually a problem, because we feel for the characters in such a strong fashion that we need to see how it all goes down. But are these characters even deserve our sympathy?

The play opens with Antony cheating on his wife with Cleopatra in Egypt. It's one of those "I'm on a business trip" sort of things that leaves poor Fulvia all by her lonesome in Rome. Antony isn't taking any of his messages, and is refusing to even acknowledge the country he has abandoned... until his wife gets killed while trying to rebel against one of the other triumvirs. Suddenly, Antony feels a renewed purpose to go up there and clean up the mess, and in the process he ends up marrying some other girl just to make an alliance with her brother (this just smells of Shakespeare's normal plot devises).

But what of Cleopatra? Can't we like her? She's a strong, female character who is the leader of a great nation. But we soon find out that she is no less vain and jealous than a high schooler. She flips on her attitudes, going from concern to jealous rage in a matter of scenes. I just have this picture of her laying on her bed curling the ends of her hairs, while the eunuch sings her some tunes, and counts the hours until Ant returns. And when she finds that he has married Octavia, she beats up the messenger (because everyone always shoots the messenger, it's a fact of life.)

So far, I find this play standard Shakespeare affair. It's not my favorite just yet (but really, nothing can touch Titus). I'm just interested to see if by the end of this, these two main characters will have any redeeming qualities.