Antony And Cleopatra example essay topic

"Antony and Cleopatra" Act 1 Scenes 1-4 In the first four scenes, Shakespeare introduces to us his tragedy, history and Roman play, "Antony and Cleopatra", where he discloses this as a story between two passionate and power-hungry lovers. It is very important for us the audience to have a great impact on the opening scenes and to feel the tragedy, dramatic and entertaining side of it, so that we can be involved deeply in them and to be anxious for the next ones, which I believe Shakespeare has achieved this marvellously. Furthermore, we are disclosed to some of the problems and dilemmas facing the couple such as the fact that they are trapped into a no way adulterous relationship and that both of them have to show their devotion to Caesar. Moreover, even though we are introduced to several different characters and baring in mind that the opening scenes are focused on Cleopatra and Antony, there's only one true main character who's caught in the middle and who plays a major part in it; Antony.

Furthermore, Antony is the one who's offered a lot of choices and open doors or even closed, but unlucky for him, cannot move one step to any of them, in other words it's like he's in the centre of a crossroad without a car. He is the main subject of most of the other characters' discussion, where each one of them keep him in their mouth and judge him with their poisoned tongue, which we the audience spotted from the first opening scene, where Philo and Dimitri us the opening characters share their thoughts on him or better judge him as it pleases them, where for their point of view he's a "strumpets fool". From this we get the impression that Antony used to be a great dominant exemplary idol who everyone used to look up to, but unfortunately not anymore, thus for both us the audience and the rest of the characters in the play we want to know what changed him; even though we do have an idea about this, which includes Cleopatra and most importantly we want to find out what happens next, which all these points meet Shakespeare's purpose. In addition, in the first scene the major dramatic theme is that we are introduced to a clash between the Roman and the Egyptian worlds. "Where is Fulvia's process? This is Cleopatra taunting Antony about being married to a woman he doesn't truly love and desire or better she's pushing herself forward by telling him what she wants him to think, in other words she's saying he doesn't love and desire Fulvia as much as he loves and passionately desires her.

We can see that Cleopatra is pushing away Fulvia's name and character from Antony meltingly. Thus, we the audience can detect that Antony in Cleopatra's eyes is a minority when it comes to compare him with herself and she wisely takes advantage of his weak manliness side and lack of moral discipline to twist his way into her own. Furthermore, in scene 2, two new characters are introduced, Charmian and Iras, who are both Cleopatra's servants. They both consult a soothsayer and she predicts that they both will leave their Queen. I think this is a very wise and impressive structure for the beginning of the play up till now because in the last scene we " re deeply drown into the two main characters' relationship and feeling their joys and conflicts, but now Shakespeare changes it completely into an area which we haven't been before. This is because we need to tranquil a little and know more about other backgrounds and hidden characters, which make this play complete and I think Shakespeare has done a great job with it.

Later on, we learn that Fulvia has died and this is quite dramatic because in the last scene we are told that she was on Cleopatra's way and now Shakespeare responds with her death. We see that a lot of actions are happening and scenes are responding to each other too fast, which sends us the message that is a very dramatic and tragedy play, thus we guess it's not going to have a happy ending. However, Antony grabs our attention immediately, as we want to see his reaction for his wife's death, someone he did not honestly love. We can see that he is panted with guilt, as he vows to return to Rome in the midst of civil upheaval.

This makes the characters in the play and us wonder if he's coming into his senses and if this major dramatic event into his life will change him to mend his ways and maybe go back to old Antony. Moreover, in scene 3 Cleopatra is advised by Charmian and Iras to allow Antony to leave. I think this sentence says it all that Antony no longer has power to choose for his own actions, which makes us the audience feel sorry for him, but yet again cannot really judge him as he's a man of his own power and actions and this behaviour with Cleopatra is quite childlike. However, Charmian is shown as very reasonable and fair. She advices Cleopatra that she should stop torturing him like this and if she continues to act like this then he " ll get tired of her and abandon her. Charmian does not take sides and we can see that Cleopatra listens to her, so she is the right character at the right place.

I think Shakespeare has included and built Charmian's character to keep the play go steady when it gets too dramatic or a bit unreasonable. We could see that before there was a dramatic irony, where we the audience could see that Cleopatra wasn't reasoning right and I think it was getting to a point where we wanted to tell her to stop, but instead Charmian does, which calms us and I think it was very cleaver of Shakespeare to do so. However, Cleopatra finally allows Antony to depart as she learns that his wife has died, which I think Cleopatra comes across as very priggish because it didn't have to die his wife for her to let him go. Also, I think at this point Antony is very low and cannot choose his own path.

Later on, in scene 4, the setting moves to Rome and we are presented to Caesar and Lepidius, where they are talking about the latest events and gossips. We are disclosed to Caesar's personal views on Antony, which are not very pleasant. He strongly disapproves with his affair with Cleopatra and he describes him as manliness and powerless compare to Cleopatra. We can see that Caesar is very strict and loyal to his duty and country. Thus, he says that Antony should really be in here beside his country when his needed as Rome is suffering now, not paying attention to his personal pleasures, and most importantly not betraying his homeland. Furthermore, he says because of being drunk all the time from alcohol and sometimes from so called love he cannot reason properly, which I think we can agree with his comment at some point.

Also, Antony clearly has lost his popularity thus he is nobody's idol anymore and certainly not Caesar's. However, Lepidius does not take sides, but he does try to excuse Antony for his actions, which I think he is a bit like Charmian. I think Shakespeare has structured it in this way so that things do not get too heated up for the play and for the audience as well. Finally, I conclude that up till now the play has been full of excitement, drama and tragedy, which are wisely fitted with each other and that for each one Shakespeare makes sure that it doesn't cross the constant level for us the audience, even for the play.