Here is my final paper for those of you who were in class on Thursday... and for those who weren't.. But its whatevs ;)

Love and Hate

Shakespeare has written many different plays in his life time. Thirty seven plays to be exact. They all are put into the different categories. Comedies, tragedies, and histories. Within these categories Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet are in the tragic category. After reading most of the popular plays two similar plays stand out, and are both in the same category. Romeo and Juliet is a very similar play to Antony and Cleopatra. The two plays are interchangeable, have the same plot line and themes. The two plays and characters are essentially the same, interchangeable, so one can get the same feel from one to the other.

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare most famous play. It out rules his better written plays. Both Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra have themes of love, war, forbidden love, and only love can conquer the war, even if both players die. Romeo and Juliet are from two different families. Families who are fighting and want nothing to do with each other. Yet there is a spark in the young lovers to want to be together. They will be together forever, even if it means taking their lives. These two “star crossed lovers” want to be with each other to the death that they do not care who they run into, and hurt along the way. The biggest theme in both plays is the idea of love and politics. Romeo and Juliet were forbidden to be together, because they belonged to two different families. The only people who know that they are together are their close friends. The nurse and Mercutio.

Both characters of the nurse and Mercutio are two very similar characters in the sense that they are the darker side of the lovers. These two characters stand by their sides and get nothing in return. They deserve to be happy and to have love, but they love their friend so much that they are willing to take this stab in the heart and be alone. But the irony of that, is that at the end of the play everyone is alone.
“There are mature loves in Shakespeare, notably Antony and Cleopatra, who cheerfully sell each other out for reasons of state, yet return to each other in their suicides. Both Romeo and Antony kill themselves because they falsely think their beloveds are dead (Bloom 88).” Where Juliet lacks her personality and self confidence Cleopatra takes the stage for that. She consistently wants to be the star of the play, the main theme. When Juliet was to grow up, this is the person she would have grown into. Cleopatra has such a strong sense of power and personality that she takes the stage for most of the play. Antony is just strung along and there for connivances. Yes she loves him, but she loves him in a way that it is for show. Whereas Romeo and Juliet are young, and they love each other for each other. These two sets of couples are different in the fact that it is a different time and place, and age. But they are the same in the sense that they love each other. When Romeo and Juliet grow up they will be just like Antony and Cleopatra.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra is so selfish. She wants everything to be her way or no way, and her people will work their way around her. If she does not find her perfect man, she will mold a man to fit her style, wit, personality, and who will take care of her. Which she does all this with Antony. Antony does not have a single say in the play at all. He does what Cleopatra tells him. He seems just fine with being the one who is bossed around. Not once does he stand up for himself. He never says one thing to make Cleopatra think otherwise. He wants to make her happy yes, but does he know any different?

Cleopatra is the way she is because as a young teenage as Juliet she was sheltered by her parents who wanted to keep her on the right side of town. As a teenager Juliet wanted to do her own thing, and explore her own world, but her parents would not let her. So thus, Cleopatra is as dramatic as she is, because as an adult she can finally get out of her shell, and do what she pleases. She claims she “loves” Antony, and he claims to love her too, but in all reality they love the idea of each other. They certainly do not bore each other, but rather they bore the audience. These two players go around and around fighting, then making up. Then it starts all over again.
Romeo and Juliet had young love. They were young, and forbidden to be in love, which is why it made the play and the excitement a little more exciting, because it was forbidden.“Juliet and Romeo indeed are in love with each other, but they are very young, and she is astonishingly good natured, with a generosity of spirit unmatched in all of Shakespeare (549).” Romeo and Juliet were in it for themselves, and to be in love together forever. But as they grow up in to Antony and Cleopatra they become in it for the show. They were more focused on the role they play within the play.

The two plays are similar in the sense that they are hard to keep up with. In Romeo and Juliet the audience has to keep up with them sneaking out, they are young, and thinking that they can make the east vs. west hate goes away with simply love. For Antony and Cleopatra it is exhausting keeping up with all the dramatics of Cleopatra. It is very clear that she wants to be the center of the play. That she wants all of the audience’s attention and reactions. Two very similar ideas, is where Romeo and Juliet spend a majority of the play together on stage alone. Whereas Antony and Cleopatra do not, they never spend one moment on stage alone together. That is why Cleopatra is so dramatic is because she had all her time being with her love when she was a teenager. She spent all her young life with the one she loved, and she never got the chance to go out and be her! Be the woman she wanted to be. So this is why she is always being dramatic, she is craving the audience attention that she never got as a teenager.

The two plays are similar because they are the same story, but they are different because they are opposite of each other. Romeo and Juliet love each other, Antony and Cleopatra love the idea of each other. Romeo and Juliet are young and in love and finding out their personalities. Antony and Cleopatra are older and know who they are, and Cleopatra spent her teenage years finding that out, so she was going to be everything and anything rolled into one. Growing up where they could not be together has the notion to them now in Antony and Cleopatra, because they are never on stage alone together. So what one play lacks the other makes up for it.

These plays were written in different places, with different ideas in mind, yet they are the same play. What one play has the other does not and vice versa. Cleopatra is how Juliet turned out 40 years later. And Romeo is Antony as a teenager. In the end both characters in the plays kill themselves because they think their significant other has killed themselves. If they cannot be with the person they love, then they will not be at all. “There are mature loves in Shakespeare, most notably Antony and Cleopatra, who cheerfully sell each other out for reasons of state, yet return to each other in their suicides. Both Romeo and Antony kill themselves because they falsely think their beloveds are dead (88).” In fact these two plays are different in their own ways, but he similarities of the two plays out weight the differences.