Antony and Cleopatra Essay
Kate Jones
Topic 2
‘The heroes are restless, like big animals in a cage. The cage gets smaller and smaller,
and they writhe more and more violently.’
[Jan Knott: Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 1965]
To what extent is Knott’s description of the major characters in Antony and Cleopatra
accurate? You must include Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra in your discussion.
Knott’s description is accurate to a large extent. Antony, Cleopatra and Caesar are each
powerful characters, “big animals”, with great ambitions, but the play reveals that all three
cannot become successful rulers. As Antony struggles to merge his Roman and Egyptian
worlds, and Cleopatra chooses dignity over the pursuit of power, Caesar ultimately becomes
the single successful leader and the last “animal in [the] cage”.
Initially, Antony is a respected Roman leader, viewed as “plated Mars”. He is powerful and
authoritative, part of “the triple pillar of the world”, however, many Romans disapprove of his
“lascivious wassails” in Egypt. It is his love for Cleopatra that makes him “restless”, and his
consequent tendency to “make his will / Lord of his reason” ultimately causes his loss of
authority. After fleeing Actium, he realises that he has “lost command”, and is only able to
restore his dignity and reconcile his Roman and Egyptian ideologies through suicide, by
becoming simultaneously a “Roman by a Roman / Valiantly vanquished” and a “bridegroom
in [his] death”. While his death affords him his “dying honour”, it means that he is no longer
an “animal in [the] cage”.
Cleopatra is viewed as a “rare Egyptian” from whom “power breathe[s] forth” in Egypt, but
in Rome she is seen as a licentious “whore”. She is “cunning past man’s thought”, and it is
partly this manipulative nature that affords her her high status in Egypt as well as her
influence over Antony. After Antony’s death, she faces the risk of being captured by Caesar
and losing her dignity by “some squeaking Cleopatra boy… / I’th’posture of a whore”. This
reveals the lack of space in the “cage” for both herself and Caesar to rule. Cleopatra
ultimately discovers that the only way to retain her honour and “be noble to [her]self” is to
commit suicide, leaving Caesar alone in the “cage”.
Kate Jones
Topic 2
‘The heroes are restless, like big animals in a cage. The cage gets smaller and smaller,
and they writhe more and more violently.’
[Jan Knott: Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 1965]
To what extent is Knott’s description of the major characters in Antony and Cleopatra
accurate? You must include Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra in your discussion.
Knott’s description is accurate to a large extent. Antony, Cleopatra and Caesar are each
powerful characters, “big animals”, with great ambitions, but the play reveals that all three
cannot become successful rulers. As Antony struggles to merge his Roman and Egyptian
worlds, and Cleopatra chooses dignity over the pursuit of power, Caesar ultimately becomes
the single successful leader and the last “animal in [the] cage”.
Initially, Antony is a respected Roman leader, viewed as “plated Mars”. He is powerful and
authoritative, part of “the triple pillar of the world”, however, many Romans disapprove of his
“lascivious wassails” in Egypt. It is his love for Cleopatra that makes him “restless”, and his
consequent tendency to “make his will / Lord of his reason” ultimately causes his loss of
authority. After fleeing Actium, he realises that he has “lost command”, and is only able to
restore his dignity and reconcile his Roman and Egyptian ideologies through suicide, by
becoming simultaneously a “Roman by a Roman / Valiantly vanquished” and a “bridegroom
in [his] death”. While his death affords him his “dying honour”, it means that he is no longer
an “animal in [the] cage”.
Cleopatra is viewed as a “rare Egyptian” from whom “power breathe[s] forth” in Egypt, but
in Rome she is seen as a licentious “whore”. She is “cunning past man’s thought”, and it is
partly this manipulative nature that affords her her high status in Egypt as well as her
influence over Antony. After Antony’s death, she faces the risk of being captured by Caesar
and losing her dignity by “some squeaking Cleopatra boy… / I’th’posture of a whore”. This
reveals the lack of space in the “cage” for both herself and Caesar to rule. Cleopatra
ultimately discovers that the only way to retain her honour and “be noble to [her]self” is to
commit suicide, leaving Caesar alone in the “cage”.
