Men in the play Essay

Cleopatra is always at a significant disadvantage as a woman in a male-dominated world. What in your opinion are the strengths and weaknesses that the Queen shows as she deals with the workforce in the play?Unanimously renowned as the harlot queen Stanley, 2001 and as a lascivious courtesan Stanley, 2001, the mercurial Egyptian Queen is anachronistically portrayed by Shakespeare in a more sympathetic attitude than his contemporaries who had diluted her character into an object of carnality. Ostentatiously dissimilar from the womanish visions of perceptual constancy and chastity presented by Octavia and Fulvia, the mature and sexual woman is nonable for her compassionate love which offers the most profound vision of human constancy French, 1982 in the patriarchal government agency struggle between the three romish triumvirs.Cleopatra, renowned for her physical beauty is shown to have an alluring effect on the men that surround her, often exploiting her appearance to ensnare po werful men to do her bidding. Te extent to her aesthetic manipulation is revealed in the plushy descriptions of her when she first met Antony, who instantaneously seemed to have fallen victim to her charms. The first work of the matriarch and her lover, as narrated by Enobarbus, displays the pomp and extravagance of the Queen, the grandeur of which seems to conquer the narrator himself and his Roman colleagues.The burnishd throne on which she sailed displayed her regality, compounding visions of gold and purple when juxtaposed with her beauty which even age cannot decrease seemed to present her in a god-like manner that rivals the beauty of Venus. Such high-sounding descriptions seems to justify the immediate infatuation of Antony and the extent to her physical manipulation, intended or otherwise is seen when the triumvir who is presented in the likeness of Mars and whose power was like wonderful thunder is inevitably turned into that of a doating mallard.It is the fall of th e worldwide from a position of infinite power to that of a helpless son that is repeatedly mourned in the play by Romans but too reveals the tempting prowess of Cleopatra whose presence is deemed to be the triumph of the voluptuous Hazlitt, 1817. The transformation into a strumpets fool is clearly visible in the skid of Antony who willingly abandons his duties in Rome, the underlying essence of his role and power.The audience is make visible of Antonys ensnarement into the Egyptian fetters which he realises he must boom if he wants to ever return with honour into the presence of the other triumvirs. It is not only her ability to form unbreakable shackles around her victims but also the consequent emasculation of Antony and her former lover Julius Caesar as revealed when she gets them to lay their sword to keister the sword being the dominant weapon of choice and phallic sign of the powerful mens manliness. Simultaneously assuming the role of a metaphorical embodiment of Ven us, dressed in cloth-of-gold but also the incarnation of her beloved Egypt, she is shown to be an inherently sexual character, unmatched in regality and lustre. indignant in political knowledge and militaristic power by the trey pillars of Rome, Cleopatra employs her seductive beauty, enhanced by her ability to wield emotional power to ensure her continued survival. It is often suspected that despite her infinite var. and oscillating moods, her actions always contain a deliberate logic Danby, 1952. Her supernatural strength in mentally manipulating Antony is clearly visible in the commencement scenes of the play, at the arrival of the messengers at which she suggests that Antony hear them, despite his rejection of them.