Antony And Cleopatra Comparison Essay

In Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare shifts from praising Antony as a great warrior to condemning him by depicting the gradual decline of his honor and image in order to show his inner battle between reason and emotion. This is an apparent theme in both the book and the play, though there might be some small differences both show how this inner battles defeats him and leaves Cleopatra with most of the power. One thing that I noticed is that Cleopatra seemed far more regal in the book than in the play. For example in the book when Antony wants Scarus to kiss her “favoring hand” (205) he makes it sound like a big honor that he is able to do this and the way he describes her makes me imagine that is is a regal and important moment. In the play
Antony was furious at Cleopatra and wanted to kill her. When he got tricked into thinking that she had committed suicide he then decided to kill himself. This shows how much power she holds over him and how weak he truthfully is. It seems that at this point he is only acting tough because if he really did want to kill the “foul Egyptian” (211) that betrayed him he would not be upset when she died. The most pathetic part is he could not even complete the task that a warrior is supposed to do, which is kill. He could not kill himself so he asked one of the few men that he had with him to do it. Eros did not accept the request but instead stabs himself to “escape the sorrow of Antony’s death.” (223) The play made this more serious because they did not include the part where the guards come in and think that Eros just fainted. What still remained to be hilarious is Antony's death when they had to hoist him up to see Cleopatra. This shows the true death of his power and strength because he is relying on others to help him move. It also shows how much power Cleopatra has because even though she is the reason he stabbed himself he still wants to be with her in his final moments. Even when he is about to die they are making fun of him saying “how heavy weighs my lord!” when they are trying to lift him up to kiss her. This is the most awkward death I have ever heard of and the play did a wonderful job of portraying this. Almost everyone in the crowd was laughing at this unfortunate