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Gender - Coggle Diagram
Gender
PARA THREE: The clash between the two which is explored through changing power dynamics
'The contest between Caesar and Cleopatra, Rome and Egypt, is in part contest between male scarcity and female bounty as the defining site of Antony's heroic masculinity,' -
Adelman
Snake imagery (ophidian symbolism - the clever way of saying it)
'Turn all to serpents,'
- zoomorphic imagery - inkeeping with the motif of ophidian symbolism
The ophidian symbolism throughout the play reflects the conflict between their desperation for power, whereby Cleo is described as manipulative and cunning.
Mythological symbolism
'The captain's heart,' serves 'as a bellows to and the fan / to cool a gypsy's lust,'
- Philo and Demetrius immediately establish the conflict by criticizing Antony for abandoning his responsibilities as a Roman general. They describe how his "captain's heart" now serves as "the bellows and the fan / To cool a gypsy's lust," implying he has exchanged his masculine, martial duty for a "woman's" indulgence.
PARA ONE: Female sensuality and its association with the decadence of Egypt
Water imagery
Water imagery reflects excess, disintegration and uncontrolled emotion. This contrasts the fluid, sensual world of Egypt with the rigid, dry structure of Rome
'melting, fading, dissolving, discandying, disponging and losing of form,' 'Shakespeare seems to be creating his own vocabulary to establish the feeling of disintegration in the Roman world,'
- Charney
Water is mentioned particularly in reference to the Nile - where Cleo is similar compared with the ability to shape, nourish or destroy
'this dotage of our general's o'erflows the measure,'
- jones emphasizes that the metaphor
'suggests abundance as well as prodigality,'
- foreshadows a breaking point
'Let Rome in Tiber melt,'
accompanying Cleopatra, Antony explicitly rejects his Roman duty
'If it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as
Jove,'
- comparing Cleo to the Jupiter the Roman King of Gods in order to emphasize or critics her capriciousness
Cleopatra's arrival to Antony on a boat is reflective of her power,
'A seeming mermaid steers'
- The servant steering the boat is described as a mermaid, a mythical sea creature that signifies danger, temptation, and the untameable nature of the sea.
AO3: Egyptian hedonism, encouraged living in the moment, perusing joy and enjoying luxuries like wine and music because the afterlife was uncertain. Sex was viewed as a natural, non-shameful part of life.
Gender is explored through Cleopatra's
PARA TWO: Male responsibility and its association with the rigidity of Rome
'Have glowed like plated Mars,'
- mythological allusion - Demetrius and Philo almost behave as a chorus, reasserting public opinion between Antony and Cleopatra's private moments. The use of allusion here compares Antony to Mars (The Roman God of war)
A03: Mars was considered the second most important deity under Jupiter, perhaps representing Antony's forever fear of being inferior to Octavian, foreshadowing his later emergence as Emperor Augustus
Small context note - Augustus founded the Roman Empire (with an effective monarchy), replacing the Roman Republic (first and second triumvirate)
Play begins in media res
Enobarbus is presented as the cynical, realistic, roman perspective, noting that when Antony decides to return to Rome, is to 'kill' their Egyptian pleasure, saying 'why, then we kill all our women,'