In William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, there are many characters that in the end are a major influence on each other. The three main characters that have the most influence on each other are Cleopatra, Marc Antony, and Octavius Ceasar. Cleopatra was Egypts last pharoh and Marc Antonys lover. Cleopatra favors high drama. She meets Antony and almost immediately falls in love with him. Cleopatras love for Antony becomes the most imporatant thing in her life. She uses her love to manipulate people such as Antony.
Although devoted to Antony, she plays games and her main goal is to always have his attention, she is quick to jump to conclusions about their relationship. Cleopatra is more fascinated with her wants and needs then anyone else making her a rather selfish person throughout the play. Her immaturity throughout the play is what makes the relationship between her and Antony not seem like true love. Cleopatra is always jealous of Marc Antonys actions either with his wife or with his duties toward Rome she always thrives to be his center of attention.
Cleopatra is not depicted as a mature female character in this play, whenever she dose not get what she wants to begins to throw a fit. She seem to be more of a childish ruler who only wants for herself and will influence anything to go in her favor. In my opinion not very ideal ruler. Marc Antony, a feared soldier who is one of the rulers of the Roman Empire. Antonys love affair with Cleopatra ultimately results in the neglecting of his duties as a ruler.
He is torn between his duties as a Roman ruler and his love for Cleopatra. In Act 1, Antony says “Let Rome in Tiber melt... ”, when Antony has a conversation with Cleopatra he dismisses his duties for his love for Cleopatra. Even though Cleopatra acts like a lunatic Antony is still infatuated with her, but he does realize that he must attend to his duties as a Roman ruler. Their relationship is nothing more then Cleopatras selfish lust toward and it is built solely around her pleasure Which ultimately led to Antony’s downfall.
In relation to Marc Antony, Octavius Caesar was a menacing opponent as well as a fierce Roman ruler. Caesar is not a very likable character throughout the play, his cruel actions portrays his true aggressive ambitions. Caesar has many conflicting feelings toward Antony, he believes Antony is a great soldier but ultimately wants to destroy him. Cleopatra used her manipulating skills against Caesar as well. Cleopatra saw an opportunity to return to power when she was aware that Caesar was in Egypt.
She wrapped herself in an ornamental carpet as a gift for Caesar. Cleopatra was manipulating Caesar in order to defeat her brother for power. Caesar was basically being used by Cleopatra because she realized she can accomplish many things being accompanied by the most powerful general at the time. As you can see all of these characters have a major influence on each other throughout Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra mostly caused by the manipulation by Cleopatra which in result led to many downfalls.
Author: Angel Bell