‘Antony and Cleopatra is the story of Cleopatra’s tragedy’- To what extent does your reading of Act 1 support this statement?

‘Antony and Cleopatra is the story of Cleopatra’s tragedy’- To what extent does your reading of Act 1 support this statement?
Antony and Cleopatra is a play which represents the placement of both love and women in a world dominated by men, politics and war. Cleopatra is an iconic female figure who breaks many conventions of typical representations of women in that time period. She rises above all of these domineering threats in the play as triumphant, and in scene one we begin to see how the path for this victory is laid out for her.
     The idea of the play itself being Cleopatra’s tragedy alone can be derived from the sheer power she has within the play and the influence she has over people. This influence extends from the storyline to the play itself, as Cleopatra is such a strong female character who overpowers many within the play. She also has the power to dominate the play itself, making her a key focal point within it.
     We hear of Cleopatra’s power and influence the very moment the play begins as Philo described in the opening speech how Antony has been transformed from a well-respected warrior to ‘the bellows and the fan to cool a gypsy’s lust’. This shows us even before we have met Cleopatra the influence she has to change and manipulate people into being the way she wants them to be as Antony, described in a likeness to ‘Mars’ the God of war, is now ‘a strumpet’s fool’. This description creates a vivid image of Cleopatra being very much like a puppet master, controlling others to suit her personal needs and conveniences.
      Despite the unusual sense of feminine power which Cleopatra holds she is still described in a poor light by many, called a ‘tawny front’ and ‘gypsy’ within Philo’s opening speech, the negative connotations derived from this shows that her power was most likely still regarded as revolutionary and perhaps threatening even for male hubs of power. Cleopatra is a character who used her sexuality to gain control, when we consider this objectively we can see that this may well have been the only way to gain power over a man in the period which Cleopatra was within. Theories such as Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ are in accordance with such views, stating how before the radical acts of feminism met society in the late 19th to 20th Century, the only power and influence women could have over men was through the use of their sexuality.
     Cleopatra’s power is visible from an extremely basic level, she has far more speech than a conventional Shakespeare female role would usually have, and even more unusually we see in scene 3 of act one how Cleopatra repetitively cuts Antony off before he can speak. For a woman to exhibit such acts of control and solidity over a man was extremely uncommon within Shakespeare’s works. We also see how Cleopatra’s power leads to her having such influence that even becomes worthy of the triumvirs conversing about her, for a woman’s power and influence to stretch across an entire empire is hugely representative of how Cleopatra is a revolutionary kind of woman in literature. We see the very speech of Cleopatra is regarding her with a disgusted wonder at her influence ‘he fishes, he drinks, and wastes the lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike than Cleopatra’, here we see that Cleopatra is being practically compared to Antony- a man- as an equal in power, if not above him. We can also see Cleopatra’s power through her mocking on Caesar as news comes from Rome ‘if the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent his powerful mandate to do: ‘Do this, or this….’, for a woman to be able to mock one of the most influential leaders in the world shows that she is also aware of her power, if not a little arrogant with it also. The fact that Cleopatra holds such a large extent of power and importance as a character shows us that the story is very much hers. She has a great deal of input into the decisions and lives of the other characters, showing that the play is very much shaping itself to become her tragedy alone as her love leaves, rendering her for once out of complete control.
     The use of dramatic irony within the first act also demonstrates how the story is Cleopatra’s tragedy alone. References from the Soothsayer to Charmian about her fate stating she shall ‘outlive the lady whom you serve’, shows us the first mention of Cleopatra’s fate, setting up a point for the story to return to and come full-circle. The second use of dramatic irony is from Enorbarbus within his discussion with Antony as he decides to leave Egypt ‘if they suffer our departure, death’s the word’, this stands as the second hint of Cleopatra’s death showing us again that the only character with frequently implied happenings is Cleopatra, making the tragedy and story very much hers and hers alone. Antony goes on to mention ‘a serpent’s poison’ in one of his parting speeches, again incorporating the use of dramatic irony as this is what Cleopatra commits suicide with. We see throughout the first act how the hints of Cleopatra’s death become more and more fleshed out showing how her path is being placed down before her.
     We can see that the story of Antony and Cleopatra is more so Cleopatra’s tragedy than Antony’s. Both characters are set up as the absolute antithesis to each other. Their gender roles are very much reversed from the traditional. Cleopatra stands as the more influential and powerful of the two, holding the power to manipulate Antony and use him ‘if you find him sad, say I am dancing; if in mirth, report I am sudden sick’- her love is obsessive yet controlling, reflecting a male-like power. Antony is the opposite of this. He is strung along by Cleopatra, unable to give in to her, abandoning world issues due to his romance. Cleopatra has more power than Antony in this respect and we do see her using her sexuality to control him and being far more in control of it than Antony as he asks her ‘what sport tonight?’ and she brushes his comment off, redirecting him to ‘hear the ambassadors’. We can see from their speech to each other alone how Cleopatra is placed upon a pedestal by Antony as he calls her ‘Queen’. Cleopatra merely refers to Antony by his name alone until we reach the end of the scene.
     Cleopatra’s influence over the story and power to be the centre point of the tragedy springs very much from her power to manipulate others. Upon hearing of Antony’s plan to leave Egypt, and thus her, she tries to blackmail him into remaining with her ‘Oh, never was there a Queen so mightily betrayed!’ We see how Cleopatra tries numerous approaches to get Antony to stay such as emotional blackmail ‘the greatest soldier of the world, art turned the greatest liar’, then pretending to be unwell to get him to stay ‘I am quickly ill’ and finally by acting in an almost submissive manner at a last resort as she senses herself as for once being unable to control the man whom she had once had such a complete form of power over ‘be deaf to my unpitied folly’.
     Cleopatra’s fear of losing Antony becomes apparent in her disjointed speech and this shows an evident sense of grief from her. We now see Cleopatra in a different light, as if vulnerability has seized her. Her words suddenly become fairly monosyllabic, as if showing a breakdown to the raw complexity of the emotion running through her, breaking down the power she stands to represent as her stronghold begins to take control for himself. She detaches herself from Antony as she begins to realise she is powerless to change his mind, a blunt form of coldness taking hold of her speech, as if she is trying to become bitter and break off from him to numb the pain of his leaving, calling him ‘Sir’ and ‘Courteous Lord’ in an almost submissive manner.
      Cleopatra’s speech within this part of the scene is broken down, showing the tragedy already taking hold of her and nobody else to any similar extent. The use of syntactic parallelism with the anaphora ‘Sir, you and I must part’ and ‘Sir, you and I have loved’ shows Cleopatra as if she is desperately trying to order her thoughts, but she is still confused as she breaks off. As she tries again to explain her emotion she finishes with ‘but that’s not it’, deepening her sense of confusion and helplessness as she is struggling to control herself now that she’s lost her control over Antony. As such a powerful icon, Cleopatra may well have never felt these conflicting emotions before as her love is clashing with her power over Antony.
     The mere fact that Cleopatra seems to be feeling a more powerful emotion and suffers more of an impact from Antony’s departing shows her again as the focal point of the scene as it seems to mean more to her character. This emotional response is what could be making Cleopatra as a woman a victim for the tragedy of the play, showing her as falling at the destructive and all-powerful hand of man. The concept of a woman being powerful and so radically different is something that may have been seen as ‘not right’ within the play, and we see it is very typical within stories for abnormalities to be resolved to a normal state by the end of the play, in this sense Cleopatra’s death was an inevitable eventuality. Yet there is a victory to her suicide, as she dies and takes control of her own life, she is still remaining in power as she chooses to take it, allowing her both to fall but remain this iconic figure of power throughout her tragedy.
     In scene one we are confronted with many hints and emotional responses about and including Cleopatra that can only work for the purpose of setting up the foundations for her tragedy. Cleopatra is alone when she takes fate into her own hands and I think this is what makes the tragedy hers alone as this is how she faces it in the end.