Anxieties Of The Era By Focusing On Cleopatra’s Authority, Gender, Sexuality And Race In Shakespeare’s Antony And Cleopatra

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Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt has effectively captured the popular imagination of writers and audiences throughout myriad time periods, gaining historical and cultural significance which metamorphosed the ancient Queen into an iconic figure laced with a mystical persona embedded with an alluring charisma. Gender politics blanket plethora of representations of Cleopatra across time periods and each of these perspectives give a vivid insight into issues of gender and power in the rigid societal frameworks of respective eras. Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” intertwines the political and the personal facets of the classical historical figures of Antony and Cleopatra to project the tragic love affair couched in the complexities birthed by the political arena and its responsibilities juxtaposed with licentious sexuality. Throughout the entirety of the play, Cleopatra is constantly showcased as the ‘other’, a dark skinned, sexually charged exotic queen, with immense power and a manipulative persona in contrast to the feminine mould of virtue which she flouts every solidified facet of the same. Her Oriental race convolutes her queenly status as she is scrutinized and degraded throughout the course of the play which can be deemed as Shakespeare’s attempt to showcase the standard and conventional vista of the era. She is portrayed as a threatening force dismantling the rigid notions of gender and power which can be related to the reign and demise of Queen Elizabeth and the anxieties associated with a female authority which births peculiar tensions which the play seems to mirror in terms of social context. The play can be analyzed as a saga of political power through a lens of gender and its perspectives where the figure of Cleopatra is elevated to the status of a political and social metaphor which Shakespeare employs to showcase the place of women in a highly patriarchal social order and making gender a central concern of the text. It can be stated that the Shakespearean masterpiece exhibits the public and private images of gender as well as the politics associated with it and how Cleopatra carves a space for herself in an intensely patriarchal structure and yet is confined to the rigid mechanisms of the same.

Cleopatra has been hailed as the most notable female historical figure and has always been defined and portrayed in connection with her gender and sexual profligacy. Her persona seems to have garnered a mysterious aura blanketing her identity thereby achieving mythic dimensions which make her an extremely complex and ambiguous character which is clearly reflected in the play. As R.S. Sharma states in his essay “Antony and Cleopatra: Character as Actant and Site”, “Most of the characters in the play are intensely curious about Cleopatra so much so they transcend the immediate political, racial or personal concerns…. they are also aware of her mysterious presence. She is the “woman extraordinary”. Enobarbus effectively captures the intricacies of her mystique being in Act II scene ii, “Age cannot wither her not custom stale, Her infinite variety: other women cloy, The appetites they feed, but she makes them hungry……bless her when she is riggish.” The barge passage in the play where she impersonates the Goddess Venus and unveils herself as a powerful monarch and a charming lover which creates a rich portrait of her personality blending sensuality, glamour and her theatricality seamlessly. She effortlessly combines her personal and political self to project her clasped grasp over her power which is clear when she refers to her putting ‘my tires and mantles on him [Anthony], whilst/ I wore his sword Philippan’. Here she clearly uses her sexual power to control Antony’s political decisions and literally hold the sword “Phillappan” which is the embodiment and symbol of Roman power. At the ending of the play her only escape is death which she fashions as a dramatic performance, a final attempt at reclaiming and showcasing her power. She blurs the boundaries between the personal and the political as a lover and a queen thereby transcending the traditional boundaries by projecting the intensity of her authority and the inability to dislocate her power from as she immortalizes herself as a “queen”.

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Gender can be hailed as a factor that is culturally determined in every facet as Scott, Joan Wallach Scott states in “Gender and the Politics of History”, “the term ‘gender’ suggests that relations between the sexes are a primary aspect of social organization; that the terms of male and female identities are in large part culturally determined (not produced by individuals or collectivities entirely on their own)”. Hence, the strict gender roles claim to maintain the social order and any transgression threatened the operations of the same. Plethora of writers launched their own investigations into the phenomenon known as Cleopatra. Mary Sidney Herbert ‘s Antonious (1592), Samuel Daniel’s The Tragedie of Cleopatra (1594) and Samuel Brandon’s The Tragicomeodi ofthe Vertuous Octavia (1598) deal with the issues and complexities of gender by giving a vivid insight into the societal norms and cultural construction of gender with regard to femininity and power. Lucy Hughes Hallett in her work “Cleopatra Queen, lover, legend” states that each image of Cleopatra … provides clues to the nature of the culture which produced it, its neuroses and its fantasies’ This can be inferred in connection with Shakespeare engineering Cleopatra’s character with elements of indeterminacy and ambiguity to juxtapose private desires with public duty. She is referred as the “Royal wench” by Agrippa, the oxymoronic label reflects the conflict of gender in a highly patriarchal framework. The gender boundaries that Cleopatra transcends can be inferred from works such as John Knox’s tract “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women” where he deems the accession of a woman to the throne as against the natural order of things. He uses the cultural definition of woman as naturally inferior to man on a physical, emotional, and intellectual level. It can be stated that Cleopatra is a multivalent character and Shakespeare like many other dramatists uses her a medium to project his perspectives on gender which is inextricably tied with power.

Juliet Dusinberre in her seminal work, “ Shakespeare and Nature of Women” argues how the Shakespearean heroines are modern and emancipated because of the sensitivity to women’s issues in the Renaissance mind frame. In the play Cleopatra emerges as a great courageous queen with a noble mind, unafraid to express with total eloquence in speech. She cultivates within her a sense of awareness about her being unmatched and as Pratima Agnihotri states in her essay “A Lass Unparalled”, “Her true identity shines forth as a majestic woman who would let her “passion” reduce her to a “lass”, “A maid”, a common enough female. She is always aware that she is unparalled.” She flouts every gendered norm as a woman and an Egyptian and presents herself as equal in every arena and embraces her outlandishness. Her personal notions clash with the rigid gendered roles which forced women into private spheres and associated femininity with submissiveness. She ventures far into the public realms to assert her authority in every societal sphere. The play contains no references to her maternal aspect as children do not find a place in the tragic saga. This can be inferred as Shakespeare’s attempt to displace Cleopatra completely from the domestic arena which was unacceptable for women in terms of her natural course of life. This can be interpreted as to why Cleopatra was considered as a threat belonging to the Orient as her sexuality was unregulated, which would automatically disqualify her from the traditional female model of virtue. Her suicide at the end is her final assertion in a deeply patriarchal world as she makes a spectacle of her death thereby robbing Caesar of his power and desire to attain her.

Shakespeare embodies the anxieties of the era by focusing on Cleopatra’s authority, gender, sexuality and race as well as highlighting how she eclipses the patriarchal ideals to their core.

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