William Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra Essay -- Shakespeare Antony

William Shakespeares Antony and CleopatraThe triple mainstay of the world transformed/Into a strumpets fool. Behold and butt against (I.1.12). I have eyes upon him (III.6.61). Shakespeares Antony invites speculation and a esurient voyerism that can only be instigated by a suspensor who, scorn perpetually being at the centre of discussion, manages to elude classification.This impression of opaqueness of character is enhanced by the fact that his own idea of him ego and of his rebellious infatuation with Cleopatra is constantly mutating. Antony oscillates between wishing Would I had never seen Cleopatra (I.2.253), and admitting IthEast my pleasure lies (II.3.41). One moment he wails I have fled myself ... I have lost command (III.11.7, 23), the next he reassures himself with a mantra-like repetitiveness, Theres hope int to that extent ... Theres sap int yet (III.13.175, 191). When the protagonist himself is never static, when the other characters define him in accordance to their own agendas or morbid curiosity, there is very little for the audience to hold onto in the way of tangible evidence of cardinal mental invoke as opposed to another. This common body, like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,/Goes to and back, lackeying the alter tide,/To rot itself with motion (I.4.44) Caesar says this ab bulge the tendency of the masses to wish for the pattern who isnt in power or is seen less, and then when he does sum into the limelight, to lose interest and want someone else. But taken out of context, these lines are a disturbingly appropriate depiction of Antonys state throughout the play. For he is discussed and prodded as if he were common property, and shifts continuously between du... ...ity and littleness, an admission of his own weaknesses. The vagueness of Sometimes we see a cloud thats dragonish,/A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, ... That which is now a horse, even with a thought/The rack dislimns, and makes it neb ulose/As water is in water is juxtaposed against the profoundly personal, intrspective lines hither I am Antony,/Yet cannot hold this visible shape (IV.14.3-22). The upshot is the feeling that whether he has fallen or not, whether the Roman way is repair than the Egyptian, whether the old Antony is a myth, his own self-disgust and deflated sense of self remains. Perhaps that is the closest we can expect to get to the real Antony the one he reveals when in the throes of self-doubt. Perhaps that is all we deserve to uncover for as Dantes Virgil would say, the desire to hear others dispute is a base desire (xxx.148).