Guy Duperreault Antony and Cleopatra: On Being Unconscious and the Projection of the Shadow 1

English 2nd Year, 1998

By making detailed reference to the text, prove, disprove, or qualify the following:
Antony and Cleopatra is not so much about conflict between two viable ways of
living, but about embracing illusion to avoid reality.

Antony and Cleopatra is absolutely not about the conflict between two viable
ways of living. Nor is it about two people embracing illusion to avoid reality for the
simple reason that Antony and Cleopatra were both unconscious of the psychic
energies — i.e. energies within the psyche — which had embraced them. These
unconscious energies made them incapable of the conscious act of embracing anyone,
although Antony was far more unconscious of himself and his situation than was
Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra is, therefore, about the psychological dynamics of
individual growth and interpersonal relationships, specifically the dynamics of individual
projection and counter-projection (or transference and counter-transference) which
beautifully illustrate some key aspects of Jungian psychology and archetypal
principles, in particular the shadow, anima and animus1. In the light of Jungian principles,
Antony and Cleopatra is less a tale about the tragic beauty of embracing illusion (or
being embraced by illusion) than it is a cautionary tale against remaining childishly
ignorant of the energies of the unconscious and its push towards the personal growth
and maturity of the conscious psyche. I examine the Jungian aspects of Antony's
shadow and its anima projection onto Cleopatra and her accommodation of that
projection with her own counter-transference onto Antony of her animus. During this
investigation it is made clear that Antony and Cleopatra is not about choosing between

1
The shadow is "the 'negative' side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together
with the insufficiently developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious." (Jung "Archetypes" 87) The
anima and animus are the contra-sexual psychic representations of a man's or woman's unconscious or soul: "[In his
dreams] a man will discover a female personification of his unconscious; and it will be a male figure in the case of a
woman. Often this...symbolic figure turns up behind the shadow, bringing up new and different problems. Jung called its
male and female forms 'animus' and 'anima.'" (Franz Process 186.)
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two viable ways of life because Antony's activated shadow fully rejected the repressive
life of Rome for the expressive life of Egypt and Cleopatra. It is about Antony's
unconscious energies demanding him to grow and his failure to become conscious of this
imperative and the consequences of that failure2.
Before examining some of the details of Antony's projection of his anima onto
Cleopatra, I explore those energies of which Antony's shadow/anima is composed, and
why his anima is so pathetic that it eventually leads him to a sloppy suicide. Jung writes

that:

"As to the character of the anima ... it is, by and large, complementary to the character of

the persona. The anima usually contains all those common human qualities which the

conscious attitude lacks" ("Definitions" 101).

Therefore, to get an idea of what energies compose Antony's shadow/anima — and

how they took hold of him and influenced him up to and including his suicide — an
examination of how he consciously lived his life is needed. Those aspects of his life
which he had repressed because they were deemed as either inferior to his persona or
because they were impediments to his ambitions, and the energy with which he
repressed them, is the yardstick against which his anima's actions will (or will not) be
made comprehensible. Philo, in the opening of the play, gives a quick synopsis of
Antony's power as a soldier:

Phil. ... his captain's heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

2
Because of the constraints of this paper I concentrate more on Antony than Cleopatra. Cleopatra is a far more
complex character than is Antony, and rewards a close scrutiny, but because Antony is far more unconscious than is she,
he more clearly demonstrates the shadow in action.
Guy Duperreault Antony and Cleopatra: On Being Unconscious and the Projection of the Shadow 3
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The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper, (I.i.6-8).

Philo (and others) say much more, but Cæsar's reminiscence perhaps epitomizes
Antony's soldiering:

Cæs. Thou didst drink

The stale of horses and the gilded puddle

Which beasts would cough at; thy palate then did deign

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;

Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,

The barks of trees though [browsed'st]; on the Alps

It is reported thou dids't eat strange flesh,

Which some did die to look on; and all this —

It wounds thine honour that I speak it now —

Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek

So much as lank'd not. (I.iv.61-71)

Furthermore, Antony has not only survived the brutal barbarism of Roman politics — in
which assassination is perfectly okay (II.vii.79-85 and Julius Cæsar) — but he has
mastered it, of which his "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend more your ears" speech is
an example (Julius Cæsar III.ii.78-112) and which his being one of the ruling triumvirate
proves.
And as part of Roman male society, his respect for women and their role in
society, i.e. the "feminine," can be deduced by the frequent derogatory references to
women and their character, of which Philo calling the Queen of Egypt a "strumpet"
(I.i.13) is a typical example3. But it is nowhere more clearly or eloquently described than

3
I am using "feminine" here as an archetypal image of the female as soft and nurturing and compassionate, etc. This in no
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by Enobarbus:

Eno. Under a compelling [i.e. political] occasion, let women die. It were pity to cast

them away for nothing; though, between them and a great cause, they should be

esteemed nothing. (I.ii.141-144)

Thus those characteristics needed to succeed in the Roman militia and politics were
developed at the expense of his humanity, physical and emotional sensitivity and other

so-called "feminine" attributes. This implies that his shadow will be composed of just
those repressed aspects, his humanity, sensitivity, compassion, etc. The power with
which he repressed the "feminine" implies the power with which the "feminine" attributes
will seek expression, such as in the strength of the projection of his anima onto
Cleopatra as well as the degree to which these expressions will be poorly differentiated
and clumsily or naïvely articulated — of which highly sentimental poetry, regardless its
beauty, and a sloppy suicide, are examples. Franz writes:

If a particular quality is obviously present in another person, one must remember that the

outwardly perceived quality is also present in the subject, where it forms part of the object-

image. This is an image existing independently of and yet based on all perceptions whose

relative autonomy remains unconscious so long as it appears to coincide with the actual

behaviour of the outer object. As a result, however, the outer object or the person onto

whom something is projected has thus received an exaggerated value and is able to

produce immediate psychic effects on us.... This kind of overvaluation of an outer object

can seriously damage the development of a human life. (Projection 27).

way assumes that women are necessarily — or even should be — this way, but that our mythology, history and culture
have, rightly or wrongly, ascribed these characteristics to females. See Neumann's The Great Mother for a brilliant
exploration of the "positive" and "negative" images of the female throughout mythology and history.
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In the case of Antony his overvaluation of Cleopatra leads to military defeat and
suicide.
When DeRoo says "As Antony makes his Egyptian choices, therefore, he may be
committing acts of folly, but he may also, at some level, be making an affirmation of life"
(330) he is absolutely right – Antony's shadow has taken him in hand to experience the
life he has, until now, repressed. And because his repression has been brutal, the
effects of his shadow are no less brutal. A current analogy is the hard, career driven,

business man who has a heart attack at the age of forty-five and so dumps his family for
the eighteen year old secretary, some exotic other lifestyle, hospital bed or morgue.
Jung describes the changes which can be wrought by the shadow this way:

The anima belongs to those borderlike phenomena which chiefly occur in special psychic

situations. They are characterized by the more of less sudden collapse of a form or style of

life which till then seemed the indispensable foundation of the individual's whole career.

When such a catastrophe occurs, not only are all bridges back into the past broken, but

there seems to be no way forward into the future4. One is confronted with a hopeless and

impenetrable darkness, an abysmal void that is now suddenly filled with an alluring vision,

the palpably real presence of a strange yet helpful being, in the same way that, when one

lives for a long time in great solitude, the silence or the darkness becomes visibly, audibly,

and tangibly alive, and the unknown in oneself steps up in an unknown guise. (Alchemical

par 216).

So when Antony runs back to Rome, for example, he can but fail in his attempt at re-
integrating himself there because he has not withdrawn his projection from Cleopatra.

4
Bly calls this experience "The Road of Ashes" (Ch3).
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Even breaking from Egypt requires him to denigrate the object of his projection in an
attempt to dis-empower it: "I must from this enchanting5 queen break off," he says
(I.ii.132) and "She is cunning past man's thought" (I.ii.150). These put downs are of his
own energies, and thus when he runs back to Rome it is to get away from himself, which
of course he can not do.
In a politically astute, and completely intellectual action that further represses
the feminine within, Antony agrees to marry Cæsar's sister Octavia (II.ii. 120-151). But

this and the other political machinations no longer satisfy him because they are a denial
of a part of himself that will no longer tolerate repression and is, instead, seeking
expression, seeking, in a sense, to "civilize" him6.
The shallow sensuality of his drunken fellow Romans on Pompey's ship (II.vii) was
a touchstone of just how far Antony had moved from being a Roman: the activation of
Antony's shadow while in Egypt was the beginning of his growth towards a mature man,
a man no longer bound to the childish fantasies of power and wealth. When he saw his
old life in action again in Rome, he discovered that he could no longer live that life7. It is
not insignificant that it is a soothsayer who recognizes that Antony can no longer be the

5
In Shakespeare's time, "enchanting" meant "that puts under a spell.". This is from "enchant" which meant "1 Put under a
spell, bewitch. LME 2 Influence powerfully; delude; induce or compel to do. LME-L17" (Oxford 813).

6
I am reminded of the soldier in the movie "Dances With Wolves," who, under the civilizing influence of the shadow
elements of his psyche as "played" by the North American Indians, "went native" and could not return to the barbarism of
his so-called civilization.

7
Jung is very critical of the veneer of civilization, of which the party of Pompey's boat is a good example. "...Western
superciliousness in the face of these ... insights [into man's shadow] is a mask of our barbarian nature, which has not the
remotest inkling of their extraordinary depth and astonishing psychological accuracy. We are still so uneducated that we
actually need laws from without, and a task-master or Father above, to show us what is good and the right thing to do.
And because we are still such barbarians, any trust in the laws of human nature seems to us dangerous and unethical
naturalism. Why is this? Because under the barbarian's thin veneer of culture the wild beast lurks in readiness, amply
justifying his fear. But the beast is not tamed by locking it in a cage. There is no morality without freedom. When the
barbarian lets loose the beast within, that is not freedom, but bondage" (Types para 357). The Roman's addiction to the
spectacle of the forum is a measure of the thinness of their civilized veneer.
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Roman he was and who sparks his return to Egypt (II.iii.11-40), because the soothsayer
is a mythological embodiment of the bridge between the conscious and unconscious. In
going back to Egypt, Antony had, unconsciously, acquiesced to his shadow's demand
that he grow.
Now to look at the manifestations of Antony's activated anima and its projection
on Cleopatra and Cleopatra's counter-transference. Antony and Cleopatra opens with
Antony being denigrated by the veteran soldier Philo and introduces the two love birds:

Phil. Take but good note, and you will see in him

The triple pillar of the world transform'd

Into a strumpet's fool.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd. (I.i.11-15)

This sets the stage that this story is about a highly successful warrior and politician
forsaking his career and reputation for "his" woman. With these few lines we see the
suggestion that Philo may be accurate in his assessment because Antony is at least very
much infatuated, if not in love, with Cleopatra. In short order Philo's assessment seems
dead-on when Antony ignores the messengers from Rome in order to romp with the
object of his love, an action which is a clear denial of the requirements of Antony's life as
one third of the Roman triumvirate8. Antony himself describes how far he is from living
the practical concerns of his political position by raising his own emotional/sensual state
above the petty concerns of prosaic, dirty life:

8
Thus Antony seems to have chosen a path away from personal growth and responsibility, despite his shadow's need
for it, because, as Jung says: "The right way to wholeness is made up of fateful detours and wrong turnings. Free will is
the ability to do gladly that which ... must [be] do[ne]." (Always vii) my emphasis.
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Ant. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch

Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.

Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike'

Feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life

Is to thus, when such a mutual pair

[Embracing Cleopatra.]

And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,

On pain of punishment, the world to weet

We stand up peerless. (I.i.33-40)

Antony has put himself, his love, above the concerns of an earth too dirty to
understand it: he is not grounded. Jung describes Antony's "blind" love perfectly and
foreshadows the tragedy that follows:

[L]ove is needed for [higher consciousness and responsibility], but a love combined with

insight and understanding.... The blinder love is, the more it is instinctual, and the more it is

attended by destructive consequences, for it is a dynamism that needs form and

direction.... A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctual way and is in

addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything he is not conscious of

in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections upon his neighbour (Alchemical

para 391).

Franz echoes Jung, but with a more pointed connection to Antony's infatuation:

It is the presence of the anima that causes a man to fall suddenly in love when he sees a

woman for the first time and know at once that this is "she." In this situation, the man feels as

if he has know this woman intimately for all time; he falls for her so helplessly that it looks to
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outsiders like complete madness (Process 191).

In Antony and Cleopatra, Antony completely lives these definitions. Thus it is clear that
he is not in love with Cleopatra, that he is not embracing illusion, but has been, instead,
fully embraced by his shadow in the form of his anima as projected onto Cleopatra.
On the other hand, an excellent measure of Cleopatra's own conscious
awareness is that she knows that Antony's poetry, while beautiful, is not love: "Excellent

falsehood!" (40) she replies to Antony's words. She is able to enjoy the beauty of his
poetry for the sentiment it is without being lost in it. In contrast to Antony her love is
rooted in life, a rich and sensual life which can enjoy the poetry of words and sex equally
without confusing one for the other. Cleopatra is always aware of herself as a Queen
and as a sensual human being without having to pretend away Rome's messengers,
Fulvia, then Octavia, and Cæsar and their serious and significant place in her life. This
is made clear when she encourages Antony to listen to the messengers (I.i.48) and in her
various negotiations with Cæsar in act III scene xiii, for example.
What she is unconscious of, unfortunately, is the counter-transference of her
animus onto Antony. While she is conscious enough to distinguish between sentiment
and love, she is blind to Antony's (false) belief that his sentimental words are actually
words of love. Two key indications of the projection of her animus, with its concomitant
lack of understanding of Antony, occur around the disastrous sea battle at Actium.
The argument with which Act III scene vii opens between Cleopatra and Enobarbus
infers that Cleopatra had convinced the "bewitched" Antony to confront Cæsar by sea:

Cleo. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.

Eno. But why, why, why?

Cleo. Thou has forspoke my being in these wars,

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And say'st it is not fit.

Eno. Well, is it, is it?

Cleo. [Is't] not denounc'd against us? Why should not we

Be there in person? (III.vii.1-6)

Franz says that an activated animus "will appear rather in the form of unconscious
impulses to action, sudden initiative, ... opinions, reasons or convictions" (Myth 70).

This describes well Cleopatra's argument with Enobarbus, and her wanting to be a
warrior queen. Her activated animus blinds her to her own folly and to Antony's
irrational state, despite her intelligence and acuity.
The second occurs with and after the battle of Actium. Cleopatra, who had
insisted on being at the ill-advised sea battle, fled from it in complete ignorance of the
effect her actions would have on both Antony's judgement and actions:

Cleo. O my lord, my lord,

Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought

You would have followed. (III.xi.54-6)

The "lord" envisaged by her animus — the "old" Antony — would not have fled.
Cleopatra, always more conscious than Antony, recognizes that they have been not
themselves:

Cleo. It is my birthday.

I had thought t' have held it poor; but, since my lord

Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra. (III.xiii.185-187)

Here I suspect that she still overestimates, because of the counter-transference or her
animus, the extent to which Antony is again himself. Enobarbus, on the other hand,

does not, and deserts Antony (III.xiii.195-200).

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Antony's later actions in defeat amply display that Cleopatra still has the power
to drive him to death, a sure indicator that he has not taken back into himself the
projection of his anima: "Since Cleopatra died/I have liv'd in such dishonour that the
gods/Detest my baseness" (IV.xiv.55-7). In a sense, his soul had died — as embodied
by Cleopatra — and thus life was no longer worth living. Even his pawning off onto
Eros his suicide (IV.xiv.62-8) and his botched attempt (IV.xiv.102-4) are a measure of
the level to which Antony was in the grip of a sentimental and weak anima: in effect he,

or rather his anima, was poetically blubbering in a most "unmanly"-like manner "Oh, poor
me, put me out of my misery!"
The difference between Cleopatra's death and Antony's is a true measure of just
how conscious Cleopatra is of herself compared with Antony. When Antony dies in her
arms she does not blubber piteously about her "baseness." Instead she exalts him, her
projection elevating him into the heavens, yes, but with an earthiness which keeps him
real, not fully a figment of her unconscious:

Cleo. The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My Lord!

O wither'd is the garland of the war,

The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls

Are level now with men; the odds is gone,

And there is nothing left remarkable

Beneath the visiting moon. (IV.xv.63-8).

And:

Cleo. It were for me

To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods,

To tell them that this world did equal theirs

Till they had stol'n our jewel. (IV.xv.75-8)

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In contrast to Antony, Cleopatra's first thoughts are not of the absolute desire or
inevitability of suicide, even though she does consider it:

Cleo. Patience is sottish, and impatience does

Become a dog that's mad: then is it sin

To rush into the secret house of death

Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women? (IV.xv.79-82)

Shortly thereafter, before her betrayal by Cæsar, Cleopatra with dignity begot of
maturity, dismisses suicide and gets down to the brass tacks of the new day, a day
begun with a sun that cares not that Antony has died. "My desolation does begin to
make/A better life" (V.ii.1-2) she says, as a mother and as the Queen of Egypt. Then
she gets down to the dirty business of negotiating her and her children's future with
Cæsar. It is upon his betrayal, trapped by a heartless and cruel barbarian, that with
dignity and pride she, in contrast to Antony, quietly, gracefully and efficiently kills
herself (V.ii.205-316).
Where Antony failed, like many men before and after him, was in becoming
conscious enough to reclaim his shadow/anima and thus taking full responsibility for his
life by becoming as conscious of himself as possible:

...the first test of courage on the inner way, [is] a test sufficient to frighten off most people,

for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided

so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. ... The shadow is a

living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be

argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem is exceedingly

difficult, because it not only challenges the whole man, but reminds him at the same time

of his helplessness and ineffectuality (Jung Essential 304).

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In other words, Antony failed to grow out of boyhood and died, in the language of the
Jungian's, a puer æternus, an eternal boy.
Clearly Antony and Cleopatra is not about choosing between two viable ways of
life. The life Antony left when he went to Egypt was killing his soul, a soul brought back
to life by the sensuality and "naturalness" of Cleopatra. In this sense his only life
affirming action was to be in Egypt, at least metaphorically, if not physically. Nor were
he and Cleopatra embracing illusion to escape from reality. Antony was, instead, fully

embraced by his shadow as projected onto Cleopatra. Cleopatra, who remained fully
aware of her position as a Queen in a country under threat from Roman hegemony, had
not embraced illusion either. Instead, the projection of her animus onto Antony blinded
her to his unconsciousness, which had, ultimately, a disastrous effect. Thus Antony
and Cleopatra is a brilliantly written tale that exemplifies Jung's observations of the
shadow and the anima and animus in action and, both metaphorically and literally, the
life threatening consequences of remaining unconscious and of refusing to mature or
live a balanced life.
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DeRoo, Harvey. Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Burnaby, B.C.: Simon Fraser University,
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Franz, Marie-Louise von. C.G. Jung: His Myth in our Time. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975. Tr.
by William H. Kennedy.

Franz, Marie-Louise von. "The Process of Individuation." From Man and His Symbols, edited by C.G.
Jung. New York: Dell Publishing, 1968.

Franz, Marie-Louis von. Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul.
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Jung, C.G. Alchemical Studies, Vol. 13. New York: Princeton University Press, 1968. Tr. by R.F.C. Hull.

Jung, C.G., cited in Always Becoming: An Autobiography by Clare Buckland. Vancouver: Peanut
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Jung, C.G. "Archetypes: Shadow; Anima; Animus; the Persona; the Old Wise Man," from The
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Jung, C.G. "Definitions," from The Essential Jung, selected and edited by Anthony Storr, Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. Tr. by R.F.C. Hull.

Jung, C.G. Psychological Types. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. Tr. by R.F.C. Hull.

Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971(?). Tr. by Ralph
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New Oxford Shorter English Dictionary, vol I. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Shakespeare, William. The Complete Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. A New Text Edited
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