Antony and Cleopatra: A Study of Narcissism

Antony and Cleopatra: A Study of Narcissism

by Maria-Louise Rowley

EXTENDED ESSAY SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIESin the Graduate Program Liberal Studies

©Maria-Louise Rowley

Simon Fraser UniversityDecember, 1998

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means,

without permission of the author.

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Introduction

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare has given us a poignant and fascinating portrayal of two of history's most (in)famous lovers. One need not be a scopophiliac to be fascinated with the passion, sexual obsession, lust for power, and capacity for deceit that drives them to betrayal and suicide. Antony and Cleopatra's psychological motivations are juggled with the skill of a master dramatistwho has a deep understanding of the human psyche. In this paper I examine the nature of their passion in light of Freudian and more recent psychoanalytical inquiry, specifically Heinz Kohut's theories of narcissism.

In looking at the play, I became fascinated with how Kohut's work on narcissistic personality disorders seemed toreflect Shakespeare's astute understanding of the motivations of these two characters. By examining the manifestations of grandiosity, fluctuations in self-esteem, and the quest for an omnipotent, idealized self-object, I explore how both characters develop along parallel narcissistic lines of subject-bound narcissism (or the pole of the grandiose self) as exhibited by Cleopatra, and object-bound narcissism (or the idealizing pole) as evidenced by Antony. The question of narcissism versus transference neurosis in Antony's behaviour is also examined

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in light of Freud's earlier theories on both narcissism and drives, particularly with respect to Caesar and “father Rome.”1

From here I invert the observations into the question: How might these traits affect or influence their behaviour? Finally, I examine the eros/thanatos theme in light of narcissism and look at how Antony and Cleopatra's behaviour reflects or comments on the larger issues in the play.

In Mourning and Melancholia Freud states that “in the two opposed situations of being most intensely in love and of suicide, the ego is overwhelmed by the object, though in totally different ways.”2 Here he sets up some interesting groundwork for looking at Antony and Cleopatra in light of narcissism. Freud's definition of narcissism is not the healthy type of mirroring and “libidinal object cathexis” one experiences in love relationships, but rather an inversion of this libidinal cathexis back onto the ego as a reaction to some previous (usually early childhood) object-loss, or disappointment, or not having had, as Winnicott

1 The terminology in the paper is characteristic of the classical language of Kohut's work in The Analysis of the Self, which was my primary source of research. I have attempted to update the language to incorporate the later terminology Kohut used in The Restoration of the Self.However, in forming the concepts for this critique, I felt it was necessary to retain some of the original language in order to integrate the theories of Freud and Kohut. I have also retained the hyphenated spelling of self-object as used in these texts.

2 Sigmund Freud, "On Narcissism: An Introduction," The Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, trans. J. Stachey (1957; reprint, London, The Hogarth Press, 1981), 252.

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would say, a “good enough” mother. According to Freud, “a human being has originally two sexual objects—himself and the woman who nurses him ... so we are postulating a primarynarcissism in everyone, which may in some cases manifest itself in a dominating fashion in his object-choice” (ibid.88). From here he argues that the developmental phase of primary narcissism is a critical stage in developing a differentiated ego and healthy super-ego, in forming loving object relations, and in attaining an individuated personality.

In On Narcissism: An Introduction, Freud makes some provocative (by today's standards) gender distinctions with regard to the narcissistic personality. He states that when a young woman reaches puberty her original narcissism is intensified and the ability to develop mature object choices, along with the accompanying sexual overvaluation, is diminished:

Women, especially if they grow up with good looks, develop a certain self-contentment which compensates themfor the social restrictions that are imposed upon then intheir choice of object. Strictly speaking, it is only themselves that such women love with an intensity comparable to that of the man's love for them. Nor does their need lie in the direction of loving, but of being loved ... The importance of this type of woman for the erotic life of mankind is to be rated very high. Such women have the greatest fascination for men, not only foraesthetic reasons, since as a rule they are the most

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beautiful, but also because of a combination of interesting psychological factors (ibid. 88-89).

I have included such an extensive quotation because at first glance it appears that Shakespeare has captured the essence of this type of woman in Cleopatra, a woman whose beauty and majesty “beggared all description”3 and whose intoxicating sexuality “made a gap in nature” (II.ii.217). But on closer reading we can see that he has created a much more complex character. She is Queen of Egypt, the goddess Isis, whore. She is a woman whose volatile emotions “are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report,” (I.ii.147-48) and whom Antony describes as “cunning past man's thought” (I.ii.143). She is a woman of action, who prefers to be with Antony on the battlefield than to be pining away in the comfort of her palace, a woman who follows her heart and designs her destiny. One can imagine that Shakespeare envisioned the younger Cleopatra as fittingFreud's description of women who “before puberty ... feel masculine and develop some way along masculine lines; ... onreaching female maturity, they still retain the capacity of longing for a masculine ideal—an ideal which is in fact a survival of the boyish nature that they themselves once possessed.”4 Her beauty and allure aside, Cleopatra is certainly not an embodiment of the passive feminine. Nor can3 Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Arden Edition, ed. M.R. Ridley

(Methueun & Co, Ltd. 1954; reprint, London: Routledge, 1987), II.ii.198.

4 Freud, Standard Edition, Vo. XIV, 90.5

she be labelled a narcissist who merely feeds on—but cannot return—the love and adoration of others. However, as the play progresses, it becomes more difficult to agree with Enobarbus's defence of her fierce passions as being “made ofnothing but the finest part of pure love” (I.ii.145). Indeedshe loves Antony, but can we say that her love is “pure,” and what does this mean in light of narcissism?

To answer this question, we need to look at more current definitions of narcissism. In The Kohut Seminars, Heinz Kohut describes narcissism as:

the instinctual libidinal investment of the self ...The degree of attention, the degree of appetite, the degree of wanting to get to it, of having it ... this we call cathexis ... The contrast to ... object love is narcissism, that is, the love of the self, the investmentof the self with all the things that one does to something that is being loved. One wants to maintain it; one wants to show it off; one wants to have it close.

But ... narcissism does not exclude object relations. Object relations are not the same thing as object love ... some of the most intense relationships to objects serve narcissistic purposes.5

The question is actually whether their “love” is object loveor intense object relations serving narcissistic purposes. If we start to think about Antony and Cleopatra in light of these narcissistic definitions, we begin to understand the nature of their obsessive passion that ultimately leads to betrayal and death. They certainly have an intense 5 Heinz Kohut, The Kohut Seminars, ed. Miriam Elson ( New York: W.W.

Norton & Company, 1987), 10.6

relationship, and, as Kohut points out, almost all love relationships contain some element of narcissism. To say that Antony and Cleopatra did not love one another would be like saying the sky isn't really blue, only the nature of love is much more illusory than the physics of light and colour.

The definition of narcissism is just as elusive withoutfurther exploration. Kohut talks about a child's narcissistic equilibrium as, “the stage of primary narcissism (which) depends entirely on the upkeep of certainphysiological balances. He must not get too cold or too hot,must not stay wet or soiled; he must not be kept unattended when he needs stimulation and he must not be disturbed when he wants sleep” (Kohut, KS 51). In other words, adequate narcissistic attention is essential for the development of healthy self-esteem and a sense of identity which stems fromthe feeling of self a child receives from having his narcissistic needs recognized and respected. But parents arefallible, and it is the small failures in narcissistic equilibrium which enable the child to grow and develop. As Kohut discusses in Analysis of the Self:

The equilibrium of primary narcissism is disturbed by theunavoidable shortcomings of maternal care, but the child replaces the previous perfection (a) by establishing a grandiose and exhibitionistic image of the self, the grandiose self, and (b) by giving over the previous perfection

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to an admired, omnipotent (transitional) self-object; the idealized parent imago.6

However, it is the traumatic interruption of narcissistic equilibrium, or denial of narcissistic needs, that leads to narcissistic personality disorders:

To look at Antony and Cleopatra in light of narcissism,we must go beyond the premise and examine the symptoms. Perhaps the most important aspect to grasp is that of the grandiose self. For Kohut, the grandiose self is “the exhibitionistic structure which is the counterpart of the idealized parent imago” (ibid. 26). In narcissistic personalities it is a survival mechanism, a way of maintaining the narcissistic equilibrium which in turn maintains the cohesiveness of self and regulates self-esteem. But it is a survival mechanism with a price. Because the ego is investedwith libido, others can only be experienced as self-objects,and “not ... as separate and independent from the self” (ibid. 3). So, when the self-object is absent, or experiences fail to mirror grandiosity and echo approval, self-esteem is lowered and feelings of inferiority, depression and ultimately “fragmentation”7 are the result. As Kohut so aptly inquires: “Who are the people, and what happens to those people who, having lost the admiring motherin one form or another, run through life looking for mothers

6 Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self, (New York: International UniversitiesPress, Inc., 1971), 25.

7 Kohut, The Kohut Seminars, 52.8

to admire them, regardless of sex or gender—continuously hungry for a verbal oohing and ahing echo to themselves?” (ibid. 61). We only need to look closely at Shakespeare's portrayals of Antony and Cleopatra to find the answer. In her very first line in the play Cleopatra asks Antony, “If it be love indeed, tell me how much” (I.i.14). Although Cleopatra is Queen of Egypt, and by her very destiny assumes a role of grandiosity, here we see a woman who needs to be told how much she is loved and admired in order to reaffirm her grandiose self. In The Drama of the Gifted

Child, Alice Miller seems to be describing Cleopatra when shesays, “The person who is 'grandiose' is admired everywhere and needs this admiration; indeed, (she) cannot live withoutit.”8 Cleopatra's narcissistic need for Antony as self-object is hinted at when Enobarbus says, “And the business you have broach'd here cannot be without you, especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends on your abode.” (I.ii.171-3). Cleopatra's insecurity surfaces when Antony tells her that Fulvia is dead and he is leaving for Rome. Her derision of Antony for leaving becomes an eruption of narcissistic rage; “I prithee turn aside and weep for her; /Then bid adieu to me and say the tears / Belong to Egypt” (I.iii.76-78). When she cries “O, my oblivion is a very Antony,/ And I am all forgotten,” (I.iii.90-91), we hear notonly anger and indignation, but fear—of losing Antony as 8 Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child, trans. Ruth Ward (New York:

Basic Books, Inc. 1981), 38.9

self-object and losing her self in the oblivion of life without him.

Enobarbus's much-quoted description of Cleopatra in ActII provides further confirmation of her grandiosity:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throneBurn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were

silver,Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster,As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,It beggar'd all description: she did lieIn her pavilion—cloth of gold, of tissue—O'er-picturing that Venus where we seeThe fancy outwork nature.

(II.ii.191-201) What Enobarbus describes is more than the regal grandeur befitting of the Queen of Egypt. Cleopatra's grandiosity is not only larger than life, it seduces and “outworks natures”and makes even the winds love-sick. Her beauty surpasses that of the goddess Venus, and is calculated to enchant, seduce and captivate all of nature. Even the posture of her attendants acts as a frame for her magnificence. The entire city flocks to see her, and Antony “pays his heart, / For what his eyes eat only” (II.ii.225-226).

According to Kohut, meeting the need for confirming approval is what maintains the narcissistic equilibrium, or sense of self-cohesiveness and self-esteem. When this need

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is denied, we see the flip side of grandiosity, a fragile insecurity and fragmentation that stems not so much from losing a person's love, but from losing their admiration (Kohut AS 21). Cleopatra asks for mandragora, a narcotic drink, “That I might sleep out this great gap in time / My Antony is away” (I.v.5-6). She muses about what Antony is doing and thinking, whether he is walking or on his horse. This particularly erotically charged segment portrays both the extent of her physical desire and her need for him: “O happy horse to bear the weight of Antony!" (I.v.21). The rest of the passage is just as evocative of her ambiguous and tenuous grandiosity/insecurity:

He's speaking now,Or murmuring, 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'For so he calls me. Now I feed myselfWith the most delicious poison. Think on me, That am with Phoebus's amorous pinches black,And wrinkled deep in time. Broad-fronted Caesar,When thou wast here above the ground, I wasA morsel for a monarch: and great PompeyWould stand and make his eyes grow in my brow,There would he anchor his aspect, and dieWith looking on his life.

(I.v.24-34)Cleopatra, in referring to herself as “serpent of old Nile”;“wrinkled deep in time”; and “a morsel for a monarch,” is nolonger depicting a self-image of majestic queen, but ageing enchantress who equates her love with the intoxicating "poison" she drinks. Yet these derogatory self-images are

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immediately countered by imperious grandiosity in her admission that she has snared a string of great lovers that include not only Antony, the dead Caesar, and Pompey the Great—but the sun and death.9

Cleopatra's grandiose self-admiration is evident when she compares Antony to an easily snared fish, or penis if wethink of the Freudian imagery, and then brags about dressinghim up in her head-dress, an image that Shakespeare borrowedfrom the myth of Hercules. (At one not so illustrious point in his career, Hercules was taken to Asia as a slave and sold to Queen Omphale who bought him for her lover and made him dress in a woman's turban while she donned his lion's pelt and club).10 The irony is all the more barbed when we consider (at this point in the play at least) that Shakespeare follows Plutarch's version of history and casts Antony as a descendant of Hercules, worthy of Cleopatra's admiration: “How this Herculean Roman does become / The carriage of his chafe.” (I.iii.84-85). However, later in acttwo Cleopatra's admiration and gleeful gloating soon turns to despair and narcissistic rage when a messenger brings herthe news that Antony has married Octavia. She unleashes her anger on the messenger when she rails, “Hadst thou Narcissusin thy face, to me / Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is

9 As discussed by M.R. Ridley in footnote 28, p. 39 of Antony and Cleopatra, Arden Edition.

10 G. Karl Galinsky, The Herakles Theme (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972), 92, 154, 189, 210.

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married?” (II.v.96-97). Of course her anger at the messengeris really anger at Antony's betrayal. In accepting Octavia as wife Antony rejects Cleopatra for Rome, denies her the legitimacy of marriage, and diminishes her forever to the role of “triple turned whore” and “trull.” This rejection would be a major blow to anyone, let alone a narcissistic personality who needs a lover as admiring mirror to regulateself-esteem. Shakespeare's use of the myth of Narcissus reflects Cleopatra's need for Antony as self-object. WithoutAntony, even the beautiful Narcissus—or Cleopatra her “self”—appear ugly.

In a seminar titled Value Judgements Surrounding Narcissism, Heinz Kohut suggests that narcissism has been given a bad rap:

There is good narcissism, and there is not such good narcissism, depending on the task at hand. To be capable of adapting to the unexpected, as well as to the expected, may under some circumstances separate the wheatfrom the chaff.11

In light of Kohut's defence of narcissism, we can consider how both Antony and Cleopatra's actions might be motivated by a narcissistic survival mechanism. Let us first finish observing Cleopatra. After Antony's betrayal of her by marrying Octavia, Cleopatra's defence is to immediately consider other options/objects. At first it might seem like retaliative betrayal when she says to Charmian “In praising

11 Kohut, The Kohut Seminars, 14.13

Antony, I have disprais'd Caesar” (II.v.108). But if we consider that she could also be contemplating the wisdom of staying with Antony who, it is becoming increasingly clear, is not going to be able to provide affirmation of her grandiosity let alone the power she needs to keep Egypt, then we can see how her actions are more a mechanism for survival than betrayal. The counterpoint to this narcissistic practicality is the insecurity she exhibits when she asks the messenger to find out all he can about Octavia. After he reports back, Cleopatra's catty description of Octavia as “dull of tongue and dwarfish,” (III.iii.16) suggests not only the anger of a woman thwartedin love, but a woman whose grandiose self has been rejected.In a fit of narcissistic contempt, she tries to restore it by demeaning her rival and by using any other means at her disposal. Antony describes her as “cunning past man's thought,” and in the same scene we see her scheming to manipulate Antony when she tells Charmian, “... If you find him sad, / Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report / That I amsudden sick.” (I.iii.3-5). Cleopatra may be haughty, vain, manipulative and emotionally—not to mention politically—vulnerable, but she is not treacherous. Clever and cunning certainly, but if we think of her with Kohut's understandingI believe we are able view her character more sympathetically.

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But is it also possible to understand Antony in light of narcissism? In simple Freudian terms he seems like a man torn between the pleasure principle and the reality principle. He commits one of the most unheroic acts of passion recorded in history, deserting his soldiers to chaseafter the woman he loves. In reply to Cleopatra's question “Is Antony or we in fault for this?” (III.xiii.2), Enobarbusputs the blame squarely on Antony by identifying his inability to allow reason to rule passion as his greatest fault, and the fault that led to his downfall:

Antony only, that would make his will Lord of his reason. What though you fled,From that great face of war, whose several rangesFrighted each other? why should he follow?The itch of his affection should not thenHave nik'd his captainship, at such a point,

(III.xiii.3-8)If in the state of “being in love” one experiences a complete loss of ego then Antony, by leaving his fleet in the height of battle and following after Cleopatra's ship, manifests a complete disintegration of ego and ego ideal. Hesacrifices the last vestiges of his honour to pursue her, and in so doing destroys his own (albeit no longer grandiose) self. Antony, the virile warrior, the Roman renegade, “the man of steel,” has become a “doting mallard,”an “old ruffian”, “unqualitied with very shame”—less than a man.

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What would drive a hero of Rome and the purported descendant of Hercules to such watery depths? How can we accuse Antony of the same narcissistic personality traits asCleopatra, the temptress who drove him to distraction? In his essay On Narcissism: An Introduction, Freud says that men and women have fundamental differences in their type of object-choice and that “complete object love of the attachment typeis, properly speaking, characteristic of the male.”12 According to Freud, object love in men is characterized by asignificant sexual overvaluation, stemming from primary narcissism, where the infant experiences the mother as part of the omnipotent self. Antony's overvaluation of Cleopatra is evident in the first act of the play, for even when he admonishes her he admires her:

Fie, wrangling queen!Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh, To weep: how every passion fully strives To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!

(I.i.48-51)If his overvaluation of Cleopatra is so evident, then it would seem that Antony's reaction is a typically normal malereaction-formation of object love. However, in the very nextscene it is increasingly obvious that it isn't. Antony's estimation of Cleopatra is no longer an overvaluation: he experiences her as both an invasive and pathological accommodation and as an idealized mother: “These strong

12 Freud, Standard Edition, Vol. XIV, 88.16

Egyptian fetters I must break, / or lose myself in dotage.” (I.ii.112-113). But if Antony's attraction to Cleopatra is as self-object, why would he fear losing himself and want toleave her? Or more importantly, why is he attracted to such a destructive relationship? Again, I must delve more deeply into the definitions of narcissism to answer this question.

Freud says that “another person's narcissism has a great attraction for those who have renounced part of their own narcissism and are in search of object love.”13 Here he seems to anticipate Kohut's theories which describe narcissism as following two developmental lines:

So there is subject-bound narcissism that needs other people to maintain itself, and there is an object-bound narcissism that needs the presence of this other overestimated object to whom one can attach oneself. These developmental lines not only go side by side with object love, but also go side by side with each other; inother words, both of these developments are present at the same time.14

In his later work, The Restoration of the Self, Kohut refers to these as the developmental manifestations of the grandiose self

and the idealized omnipotent self-object,15 or the idealized parent imago. But how does this make Antony narcissistic? Although they are not mutually exclusive, an individual is more likely to manifest the signs of one developmental pole over another. Given the previous examples, it is easy to see that

13 Ibid., 89.14 Kohut, Kohut Seminars, 41.15 Kohut, Restoration of the Self, 126.

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Cleopatra's character falls under the description of subject-bound narcissism or the grandiose pole. I believe Antony more closely fits the description of object-bound narcissism, and in Kohut's terms, instead of presenting a grandiose self with an exhibitionist need for attention, he experiences the need to merge with an idealized self-object or parent imago—i.e., with Cleopatra.

Now we begin to see just what an entangling web their “love” really is. Antony's idealizing transference serves asmirror transference for Cleopatra. She becomes the idealizedself-object who fulfils all his physical and emotional desires, and as Kay Stockholder suggests in Dreamworks,

represents an erotically nurturing maternal figure:Just as Caesar's paternal function is separate from his person, so that he functions as father to Antony only as a representative of Roman authority, so also are maternalimages of Cleopatra as the goddess Isis separated from Cleopatra's present figure. Antony experiences the paternal force of both figures as magical powers that emanate from Cleopatra's erotic nurturing.16

The Freudian image of Cleopatra as oral gratification is evident throughout the play; she is “an Egyptian dish”, “a morsel for monarchs.” Kohut recognized that an oedipal manifestation could be a guise for a narcissistic disturbance, but that it did not represent the primary psychopathology:

16 Kay Stockholder, Dreamworks (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 154.

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If we take into account that the oedipal situation cannoteven become genuinely engaged without the presence of a previously consolidated self, it becomes clear that the oedipal period is more apt to be the breeding ground for paralyzing neurotic conflicts that a central focus for serious self disturbance.17

In considering Antony in narcissistic terms, I found Kohut'sdiagram depicting the developmental lines of narcissism in Analysis of the Self helpful in understanding Antony's narcissistic regression. In it Kohut shows the second phase in object-bound development as a “compelling need for mergerwith (the) powerful object, (or the) stage of the idealized parent imago.”18 As Antony regresses to the third phase, he no longer experiences Cleopatra in the same way, but with a sense of mystical awe—less the omnipotent, idealized female self-object and more the cold, lascivious goddess whose powers are magical and addictive rather than nurturing, and negate rather than affirm his sense of self:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry,Where most she satisfies.

(II.ii.235-238)There is more than just the need for narcissistic

mirroring motivating Antony. In this passage we see how Cleopatra mobilizes deep or archaic yearnings which compete with Antony's need to be acknowledged as the brave, potent

17 Kohut, The Restoration of the Self, 240.18 Kohut, The Analysis of the Self, diagram 1, page 9.

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and honourable Roman warrior. This is in fact part what drives his actions and the plot of the play. However, to avoid oversimplifying this struggle it is important to include some discussion of narcissistic personality disorders versus transference neurosis, for as Kohut explains, they are not mutually exclusive:

In uncomplicated cases of transference neurosis the ego reacts with anxiety to the dangers to which it feels exposed when it is threatened by the breakthrough of forbidden (incestuous-oedipal or preoedipal) object-instinctual strivings ... In the narcissistic personalitydisturbances, on the other hand, the ego's anxiety relates primarily to its awareness of the vulnerability of the mature self: the dangers which it faces concern either the temporary fragmentation of the self or the intrusions of either archaic forms of subject-bound grandiosity or of archaic narcissistically aggrandized self-objects into its realm. The principal source of discomfort is thus the result of the psyche's inability to regulate self-esteem and maintain it at normal levels ...... in narcissistic personality disturbances ... the fearof the loss of the object is first in frequency and importance, and castration anxiety is last.19

If, as Kohut says, a personality can develop along both lines of subject-bound (grandiose) and object-bound (idealizing) narcissism, and narcissistic disorders can co-exist with transference neuroses, then we can begin to understand the complexity of Antony's struggle. In one corner, we see his narcissistic need for nurturing from and 19 Ibid., 19-20.

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merger with Cleopatra, coupled with grandiose recognition from and idealization of Caesar—and in the other we see his conflicting oedipal drives which compel him to experience his narcissistic needs as shameful and demeaning. In other words, he is battling not only the fear of castration, guiltand the oedipal need for potency—but also fragmentation. If we take Stockholder's image of Caesar as a disembodied, paternal authority figure representative of rational, Apollonian20 Roman values, then he becomes not only Oedipal rival and omnipotent, idealized object, but the powerful persecuting father in Kohut's diagram, who represents “the influencing machine” of Rome. The paternal expectations of Roman order are also the introverted expectations of his overly demanding ego-ideal, and his need to live up to them conflicts with the need for an erotic merger with the Dionysian mother. Again, we see evidence of Antony's conflict in the first act of the play when he says:

I must from this enchanting queen break off,Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,My idleness doth hatch...

(I.ii.125-7).This leads to his first betrayal of Cleopatra when he blamesher and his “poisoned hours” with her as the reason he “broke the article of his oath” to Caesar. His statement is no small accusation given that Roman military code of honour20 As Neitzsche discusses in Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside

(London:Penguin Books, 1993).21

was considered sacred; for to break one's oath was not only to disgrace but to deface oneself. In Caesar's eyes Antony has allowed himself to become “the abstract of all faults / That all men follow” (I.iv.8-9). As reparation, and to cement his alliance with Caesar, Antony betrays Cleopatra a second time by agreeing to marry Caesar's sister, Octavia.

Antony leaves Cleopatra for Octavia and Rome in order to reclaim his honour in Caesar's eyes, or to win paternal approval and restore his grandiose self. If, like Kohut, we think of narcissism as a survival mechanism, than we can understand how Antony must leave Cleopatra in order to regain narcissistic equilibrium. But she is also his idealized self-object, with whom he must merge. Antony's battle with the needs of a grandiose self and an idealized parent imago is a battle against two self-threatening, and ultimately life-threatening opponents. His grandiose, subject-bound opponent wins the first round but doesn't holdthe lead for long. Antony's betrayals of Cleopatra are really betrayals of himself, and as the play progresses we see an escalating disintegration of his self-esteem coupled with grandiose delusions. Our first glimpse of his narcissistic insecurity is when the soothsayer tells him that Caesar's fortunes will rise higher than his and warns:

Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:Thy demon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, isNoble, courageous, high, unmatchable,Where Caesar's is not. But near him, thy angel

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Becomes afeard: as being o'erpower'd, thereforeMake space enough between you.

(II.iii.16-22)This quotation depicts Caesar as larger than life, someone magically blessed by Fortune, someone to fear and avoid. In acknowledging the soothsayer's assessment, Antony shows further indications of a downward slide on Kohut's narcissistic scale. He now views Caesar with begrudging awe,and acknowledges that his marriage to Octavia was to please Caesar, the increasingly omnipotent father figure:

The very dice obey him,And in our sports my better cunning faints Under his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds,His cocks do win the battle still of mineWhen it is all to nought; and his quails ever Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt:And though I make this marriage for my peace,I' the east my pleasure lies.

(II.iii.32-39)In the above lines we see Antony as a skilled, courageous warrior who is struggling to maintain his image in the eyesof paternal Rome, while his pleasure—contrary to Caesar's approval—is in Egypt, with Cleopatra.

To say that Antony's actions are motivated by Freudian drive theory and the oedipal desire to kill the father (Caesar), and sleep with the mother (Cleopatra) is too simple a view of this complicated character, given the arguments in light of narcissism. If, as Kohut says, the primary fear in narcissistic personality disorders is

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fragmentation, not castration anxiety, then we can argue that Antony's primary motivations are narcissistic, not oedipal, for it is obvious that Antony's primary fear is losing Cleopatra as idealized self-object. The climax of theplay hinges on it. Antony sacrifices his honour, (and in fact seems to have forgotten it completely), to follow Cleopatra's ship in the height of the battle of Actium.

If we extend the metaphor of Caesar as head of the Roman family then we can understand to what extent Antony disgraced himself by fleeing the battle. As the narcissistic“son” to whom Miller refers in the following passage, he:

... was supposed to guarantee the family honour, and was loved only in proportion to the degree to which he was able to fulfil the demands of this family ideal by means of his special abilities, talents, his beauty, etc. If he failed, he was punished by being cold-shouldered or thrown out of the family group, and by the knowledge that he had brought great shame on his people.21

In Miller's terms, Antony would feel “that he is not loved for the person he really is at any given time” (ibid. 39), and Antony echoes this when he rails that Caesar “makes me angry with him. / For he seems proud and disdainful, harpingon what I am, / Not what he knew I was” (III.xiii.141-3). Antony's envy of the ease with which Caesar gains admirationalso fits into this same narcissistic mold. Since luck is with Caesar, he does not have to make a constant effort in 21 Alice Miller, Drama of the Gifted Child, 40, quoting M. Eick-Spengler,

“Zur Entwicklung der Theorie der Depression,” Psyche, (1977) 31: 1077-1125.

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order to impress, and he is therefore “free to be ‘average.’”22 As the proud and disdainful father figure, he admires Antony for his qualities and past achievements, but not for the totality of his being which also includes passion and emotion—a totality Antony cannot experience himself. Here we see the subtext of Antony's anger; it is really anger at his own weakness in following Cleopatra and in failing to live up to Roman standards of courage and honour. Antony recognizes his judgement is slipping, but still equates it to the fate of the stars, and does not yet acknowledge his own fragmenting self:

When my good stars, that were my former guides,Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires Into the abysm of hell.

(III.xiii.145-147)His anger elicits Cleopatra's sarcastic reply, “Have you done yet?” (III.xiii.152), and Antony's response to her is suddenly lucid and fatalistic; his rage has dissipated into profound despair at the realization of where their passion is heading:

Alack, our terrene moonIs now eclips'd, and it portends aloneThe fall of Antony!

(III.xiii.153-154)The climax of the play shows Antony losing not only the

battle of Actium, but his battle with reason. Passion, in

22 Miller, Drama of the Gifted Child, 41.25

the guise of idealizing narcissism, has won the match. When he chooses to fight by sea, it is because Cleopatra has persuaded him—and Caesar has dared him—to do so. “If we fail, / We then can do't at land,” (III.vii.52-53) Antony says, as if it is only a simple matter of changing venue, and shows that his judgement is already clouded by an imbalance in narcissistic equilibrium. After having fled thebattle to follow her, he laments his pursuit and acknowledges his loss, “I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards / To run, and show their shoulders” (III.xi.6,7). Again, we see a startling self-awareness in Antony, as if he realizes that in following Cleopatra he flees from his Roman grandiosity, and in doing so, destroys it. He also realizes that he is powerless to change his actions. Instead of conqueror, he sees himself as being conquered/castrated by her: “My sword, made weak by my affection, would / Obey it on all cause” (III.xi.67,68). In sacrificing his grandiose self in this display of emotional weakness, Antony no longer represents the masculine ideal, Miller's “phallic man,” that Cleopatra seeks as her self-object. Instead she sees a man “unqualitied with very shame,” whose heart she drags on a string behind the rudder of her ship. Thus, the climax of the play is also where Cleopatra severs her narcissistic, albeit passionate, bond to Antony and employs reason, under the guise of narcissistic defence, in her first betrayal of him.

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Examining the love/betrayal theme in light of narcissism makes it easier to understand Cleopatra's betrayals. She needs Antony as heroic warrior, not defeated lover. After her betrayal with Thidias, Cleopatra incurs Antony's wrath a second time and it is his anger and subsequent renewal of his heroic self, however fleeting or illusory, that rekindle her passion. In anger, Antony is able to experience an autonomous emotional response which comes from the part of himself not narcissistically cathected to Cleopatra. She senses this, and when Antony accuses her of flattering Caesar and being “cold-hearted” toward him, Cleopatra convincingly talks him into what seemslike an overhasty forgiveness:

From my cold heart let heaven engender hail, And poison it in the source, and the first stoneDrop in my neck: as it determines, soDissolve my life; the next Caesarion smite Till by degrees the memory of my womb,Together with my brace Egyptians all,By the discandying of the pelleted storm,Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of NileHave buried them for prey!

(III.xiii.159-167)But there is more than cunning in Cleopatra's words, there is also desperation. In her vehement denial she denounces her life, her children and all of Egypt, and says she would rather they all die and be left to the gnats of the Nile. Itis a strong statement, for to the Queen of Egypt securing an

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afterlife was as important as honour to a hero of Rome. Yet we cannot help but think of her as cold-hearted; not cold inthe sense of lacking passion or even compassion, but cold inher ability to love Antony as other, as human and fallible; cold in her ability to manipulate him because she senses he needs her more than she needs him. This is the second time she has begged Antony's forgiveness and the second time he has hastily granted it. No matter how disillusioned Antony becomes with Cleopatra, his desire, stemmed by his need for her, never wanes.

We can also support the argument that Antony's need forCleopatra is greater than hers is for him if we refer back to Kohut's diagram of narcissistic development and regression in the psychoanalytic encounter.23 Cleopatra is still in the second (non-regressed) stage of subject-bound narcissism—the stage of the grandiose self (or the mirroringpole). While by Act IV Antony has regressed to the third stage of object-bound narcissism, or the level of the idealizing pole where his idealized image of Cleopatra has collapsed and he experiences her as an omnipotent, albeit fragmented, mystical force, a “triple turned whore,” and thecause of his losing the final battle:

...The heartsThat spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gaveTheir wishes, do discandy, melt their sweetsOn blossoming Caesar: and this pine is bark'd,

23 Kohut, The Analysis of the Self, diagram 1, page 9.28

That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am.O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,Like a right gipsy, that at fast and looseBeguil'd me, to the very heart of loss.

(IV.xii.20-29)The use of the word “discandy” in both Cleopatra's plea

for Antony's forgiveness and in Antony's berating tirade needs further examination, especially since these occurrences “seem the be the only known instances”24 of the word in Shakespeare's work. The poetic image of discandying as “melting” is even more powerful if we consider it as a psychological metaphor for fragmentation. Given the context of their speeches, Cleopatra only talks about fragmentation hypothetically, as something she fears, not as something sheis actually experiencing. For Antony, it has already happened. Cleopatra has discandied his “heart,” and strippedthe strong pine (Antony) of its bark (his self).

In the scene with Eros, before he hears of Cleopatra's feigned suicide, Antony's images of a fragmented self are even more blatant. He starts by asking Eros “thou yet behold'st me?”; as if he feels he is losing corporeal substance, and then describes himself as a disappearing cloud;

That which is now a horse, even with a thoughtThe rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct

24 As discussed by Ridley in footnote 165, p.141 of Antony and Cleopatra.29

As water is in water. (IV.xiv.9-11) and

My good Knave Eros, now thy captain isEven such a body: here I am Antony,Yet cannot hold this visible shape,

(ibid. 13-15)Here we see Antony on the verge of psychosis—the final stageof narcissistic degeneration. However, Cleopatra is psychologically less vulnerable and still strongly motivatedby a narcissistic sense of survival. This is evident in her final betrayal of Antony when she feigns death to shock him into forgiving her even though she did not betray him in thefinal battle. But she realizes too late the state that Antony has regressed to and that her actions have motivated Antony to the self-annihilation of suicide.

* * * In this essay I have examined the love/betrayal theme

in light of both characters' parallel but different narcissistic development. I have shown how Antony's betrayals are motivated by his conflicting need for the approval of Caesar, who becomes the powerful persecutor, andby his overwhelming need to merge with Cleopatra, the idealized, eroticized mother, or idealized parent imago. Antony also needs Rome to affirm his grandiose narcissism, but thisneed is not as strong as his need for Cleopatra. However, Cleopatra betrays Antony when he can no longer affirm or

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mirror her own grandiose self. She needs him as phallic man, ashero. When his heroism wanes she considers other options, not only to preserve her narcissistic grandiosity, but also her life and kingdom.

If we explore the love/death theme along narcissistic lines, then Antony's suicide can be seen as a final regression and ultimate reconciliation. As he falls on his sword he says, “But I will be / a bridegroom in my death, and run into't / as to a lover's bed” (IV.xiv.99-101). In death he will not only reunite with Cleopatra, his self-object, but he will legitimize their union and become her bridegroom—part of her. He also regains his honour, his grandiose self:

Wherein I liv'd: the greatest prince o' the world,The noblest; and do now not basely die,Not cowardly put off my helmet toMy countryman: a Roman, by a RomanValiantly vanquished.

(IV.xv.54-8)It is interesting to observe Cleopatra's reactions in this scene. When Antony is dying in her arms she asks him “Hast thou no care of me?”; and barely lets him “get a word in edgewise.” Three times he implores her to let him speak:

Ant. I am dying Egypt, dying.give me some wine, and let me speak a little.

Cleo. No, let me speak, and let me rail so high,That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,Provok'd by my offence.

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Ant. One word, sweet queen:Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!

Cleo. They do not go together.Ant. Gentle, hear me,

None about Caesar trust but Proculeius. (IV.xv.41-8)

On his deathbed, Antony's concern is with Cleopatra's safetyand it seems that is where her concern lies too—not as much with him as with what will happen to her after he's gone. For now her honour is incompatible with her safety; she knows that Proculeius is a traitor and recognizes that the dying Antony is a totally defeated man, no longer aware of his real foes and allies. Yes, she feels remorse and anguish, but her emotions are tainted with her own needs forself preservation. Even as he lies dying in her arms Cleopatra continues to be the exploiting mother.

Once Antony is dead Cleopatra realizes the direfulness of her situation. She is no longer Queen of Egypt; now she is “No more but e'en a woman, and commanded / By such poor passion as the maid that milks, / And does the meanest chares” (IV.xv.73-5). In losing Antony, she has lost her narcissistic self-object, but unlike him she does not contemplate suicide immediately on hearing of his death. When he lost his honour—and his grandiosity—at the battle ofActium, she had already lost him as self-object. For Cleopatra, the first motivation for suicide is as an

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affirmation of her grandiosity, an affirmation dead Antony no longer can supply:

... And it is greatTo do that thing that ends all other deeds,Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change;

(V.ii.3-5).Death is preferable to living in mediocrity, as “Fortune's Knave.” However, it is in the scene with Dolabella that thedepth of her passion for Antony and her need for him emerges. In her dream of “Emperor Antony,” whose "face was as the heavens" and whose "voice was propertied / As all thetuned spheres" (V.ii.74-84), Antony has again become the grandiose self-object for whom she morns. Dolabella acknowledges this with “Your loss is as yourself, great,” (V.ii.101) and only once Cleopatra learns of Caesar's intentto parade her in triumph as his “Egyptian puppet” does she resolve to take her own life.

But Cleopatra embraces death, and Antony, as the queen she is—in her royal robes and crown. Her “immortal longings”are answered by the clown who brings her the asp in a basketof figs. The suicide metaphor of the “pretty worm of Nilus” killing the “serpent of the Nile” is an interesting one: theserpent's poison turned on itself. Cleopatra kills her physical self in order to reunite her psychical self with Antony, whose absence is her “oblivion.” Thus she will gain entry into the afterlife, where their relationship is legitimized and her honour maintained:

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Husband, I come:Now to that name, my courage prove my title!I am fire, and air; my other elements I give to baser life.

(V.ii.287-289) The narcissistic motivations for suicide in the play could be explored in much greater detail, however, they are also clouded by political motivations. Given the scope and lengthof this paper, I have chosen to concentrate on examining howthe characters of Antony and Cleopatra developed along parallel narcissistic lines.25

Conclusion

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare has given us a startling portrayal of what is base and what is noble in human nature. He has given us a vivid account of the complexrelationship of two extremely narcissistic characters while also commenting on how narcissism is an inescapable part of a royal personage. A queen or a prince would be reared and groomed to be grandiose, admired and adored for the nobilityof their actions and the scope of their achievements, not for their feelings or passions (just look at Buckingham Palace today). Royalty is supposed to be above all that.

25 The dynamics of narcissism and suicide is examined in an excellent paper by Giles Mitchell: "Flaubert's Emma Bovary: Narcissism and Suicide," American Imago (Summer 1988) Vol. 44, No.2, 107-128.

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Infallible. In Antony and Cleopatra, as in his other plays, Shakespeare shows us that they are all too human.

In exploring the motivations and actions of two of Shakespeare’s (and history’s) greatest lovers, I must agree with Harold Bloom’s suggestion that Shakespeare is the real father of psychoanalysis.26 Shakespeare took Plutarch's historical account of regal but vulnerable lovers and bestowed them with the baser flaws of everyman, adeptly juxtaposing grandiosity and insecurity, reason and passion, honour and betrayal in a complex web of narcissistically-driven motivations. Thus the deleterious consequences of Antony and Cleopatra's actions increase exponentially with the magnitude of their greatness. As Caesar attests in the last speech of the play:

A pair so famous: high events as theseStrike those that make them: and their story isNo less in glory whichBrought them to be lamented.

(V.ii.338-341)

26 As discussed in Freud: A Shakespearean Reading, from The Western Canon (New York, USA: Harcourt Brace Publishers, 1994).

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Bibliography

Robert C. Bak. “Being in Love and Object Loss.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 54, 1 (1973).

Harold Bloom. The Western Canon. New York, USA: Harcourt BracePublishers, 1994.

Sigmund Freud, The Standard Edition, Vol. XIV. Translated by James Strachey. 1957. Reprint: London: The Hogarth Press, 1981.

G. Karl Galinsky. The Herakles Theme. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell, 1972.

Otto F. Kernberg, “Love, The Couple And The Group: A Psychoanalytic Frame.” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, XLIX, 1980.

Heinz Kohut. The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1971.

—— The Restoration of the Self. Madison, Wisc.: International Universities Press, Inc., 1977.

—— The Search for the Self. Edited by Paul H. Ornstein. New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1978.

—— The Kohut Seminars. Edited by Miriam Elson. New York: W.W.

Norton & Company, 1987.

Alice Miller. The Drama of the Gifted Child. Translated by Ruth Ward. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981.

Giles Mitchell. “Flaubert's Emma Bovary: Narcissism and Suicide.” American Imago. (Summer 1998) Vol. 44, No.2.

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Friedrich Nietzsche. The Birth of Tragedy. Translated by Shaun Whiteside: London, England: Penguin Books, 1993.

William Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra. The Arden Edition. Edited by M.R. Ridley. Methueun & Co., 1954. Reprint, London: Routledge, 1993.

Kay Stockholder. Dreamworks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

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