Duty and desire in Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet The tension between duty and desire is used to great effect in all three plays. In Antony and Cleopatra and Othello, the way in which desire affects the characters’ ability to carry out their duty in general terms and in a military context is demonstrated through Othello and Antony. It is also echoed in other characters, and paralleled in Cleopatra and Desdemona. The story of Desdemona is also reimagined by the Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison, who with lyricist Rokia Traoré and stage director Peter Sellars, has created an extraordinary play of words, music and song that tells of Shakespeare’s doomed heroine and her African nurse Barbary. It deals with race, class, gender, war – and the transformative power of love. In “Desdemona”, Morrison has transported the most iconic and disturbing question of racial treatment in medieval Western culture firmly into the 21st century. Marital and parental duties are contrasted in Romeo and Juliet and Othello, together with the idea of misplaced duty and desire. In all these plays it appears that duty and desire are contradictory and ultimately destructive, and the tension between the two is central to the tragedy. One striking similarity between the characters of Othello and Antony is that the presence of their lovers in their war zone leads to their downfall. In both cases, the women request to be present, consequently placing duty and desire in direct conflict. Cleopatra’s status as a queen means that it is not so unusual that she should be at the battle, but Desdemona’s presence was unusual during Shakespeare’s era – it went completely against the conventions of the time to have wives accompany the armies. Ironically both Othello and Antony refer to the women as soldiers, despite the fact that it is their presence that undermines both Othello and Antony’s ability to carry out their duties as military leaders. Arriving in Cyprus, Othello greets Desdemona, “O, my fair warrior” (Act 2, Scene1 – 176) and similarly Antony refers to Cleopatra as “my warrior” in Act 4, Scene 8 (although this is after the battle at Actium). But when Cleopatra flees at Actium, Antony follows, leaving his men without a leader. He later rebukes her for her actions, and when she says she did not think he would follow her, replies:

“You did know How much you were my conqueror, and that My sword, made weak by my affection, would Obey it on all cause.” Antony builds on military imagery to describe their relationship but he is under her control, she is his “conqueror”, and not his “warrior”. He is now subject to his “affection” and can only “obey it” – he has lost control of himself by loving Cleopatra. This is expanded the in the image that his “sword” is “made weak” by his passion for her. This image is not only phallic, but one of power, showing that Antony not only sees his love of Cleopatra ultimately as a surrender but also as a loss of manhood. Likewise, Desdemona’s presence,

in leaving her vulnerable to Iago’s slander, is Othello’s undoing. As Iago’s power over Othello grows, Othello finds it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between his relationship with Desdemona and his public duties. For example, in Act 4, Scene 1, Othello slaps Desdemona in front of a visiting Senator, Lodovico, who is astonished at this behaviour. Othello is enraged at Desdemona for wishing Cassio well and his inability to control his rage is demonstrated in his language as well as his actions, when he addresses Lodovico: “Concerning this, sir – O, well-painted passion!- I am commanded home – get you away! I’ll send for you anon.- Sir, I obey the mandate, And will return to Venice. – Hence, avaunt!” (259-262) Othello’s disjointed speech darts between his official duties and his rage towards Desdemona. His attempts to address Lodovico on the business at hand are peppered with furious exclamations (“O, well-painted passion”), and aggressive commands to Desdemona (“-get you away!”). It is evident to the audience as well as the other characters that Othello has lost control of his emotions, a fatal situation for a general. In this scene he cannot keep his professional and personal feelings separate, just as Antony cannot carry out his position as a leader around Cleopatra – both men suffer a loss of self-control which leaves them unable to carry out their duty as soldiers. This tension between duty and desire in a military context is echoed and varied in the actions of other characters. In Antony and Cleopatra, Enobarbus’ suicide is in reaction to Antony’s lack of self-control, and structurally augurs Antony’s own suicide. As it becomes clear that Antony is doomed to fail against Caesar, Enobarbus defects, and in doing so defies his duty to Antony. In recognition of his dishonourable behaviour, he leaves Caesar and kills himself in a ditch. His miserable suicide prefaces Antony’s own botched attempt. However, it is clear that though unable to live up to it, Enobarbus does feel a sense of duty even if his desire to escape it gets the better of him. In contrast, Iago completely lacks a sense of duty to anyone other than himself. In Act 1, Scene 1, in order to convince Roderigo that he is not loyal to Othello, he says: “Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end.” Iago is lacks any sense of duty or indeed morality; he is only concerned with “seeming”, not being. His lack of duty is morally abhorrent, whereas most audiences sympathise to some extent with the difficulty Enobarbus, Antony and Othello have in upholding their duties. These characters are not maliciously undutiful, whereas Iago manipulates other characters’ perception of his “love and duty” for his “particular end”. It is also interesting how Iago links “love and duty” when it is Antony and Othello’s love that makes it impossible for them to uphold their duty. Perhaps it is instead an excessive of emotion rather than love that contradicts their duty. In the Jonathon Miller production of Othello, it is Othello himself who drops the handkerchief (Iago’s

only piece of evidence against Desdemona) suggesting that Othello is in part the cause of his own overwhelming jealousy that he desires to believe the worst of Desdemona. As for Antony it is his passion for Cleopatra that is his undoing, and for Enobarbus his desire to flee at Antony’s increasing incompetence. Antony and Othello are also paralleled by Cleopatra and Desdemona respectively. Cleopatra does not seem to have lost control or a sense of duty in the same way that Antony has. She is as captivated by him as he is with her; he talks of needing to be freed from these “Egyptian fetters” in Act 1, Scene 2, whilst she says of Antony, “O, my oblivion is a very Antony, And I am all forgotten.” Here it is clear that Cleopatra feelings for Antony are all consuming; though she may not have lost control, “I am all forgotten” suggests that she has lost her sense of self. But then Cleopatra seems to live by her sensuality and charm (having had relationships with Caesar and Pompey the elder), and so this passion seems to be a part of her and she does not seem to have lost out by succumbing to it. In contrast to Antony, her suicide is majestic, and there is a sense that she has won out in the end by cheating Caesar. Antony’s suicide, though motivated by love for Cleopatra, also seems to be an acceptance of defeat, because as he is losing the war against Caesar and the loyalty of some of his men, there is little else for him to live for, whereas Cleopatra still has Egypt, and kills herself anyway. Similarly Desdemona does not dishonour herself by her own standards. But in contrast, Desdemona recognises that she does have a duty, a duty to her husband, to uphold, and succeeds. Even when Othello kills her, she does not betray him, and her last line, to Emilia, is, “Commend me to my kind lord – O, farewell!” (Act 5, Scene2 – 126) Desdemona is clear where her duty lies, and even at the point when the audience would sympathise with her revealing Othello’s crime she does not. Stephen Greenblatt has suggested that Othello is incapable of recognising Desdemona’s loyalty to him, because he primarily sees their relationship as deceitful because Desdemona deceived her father. Yet both she and Cleopatra remain true to that they perceive as their duties and so their deaths, though tragic, do not signify a defeat or loss of character on their behalves. Desdemona’s unfailing sense of duty to Othello is more obviously paralleled by Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Although, as the play progresses, Desdemona is bewildered at Othello’s behaviour, she vows in Act 4, Scene 2, “Unkindness may do much, And his unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love.” (Act 4 Scene 2 – 158-160)

This is exactly what happens; Othello’s “unkindness” against Desdemona leads to her death but does not kill her love. Similarly, when Juliet hears that Romeo has killed her cousin Tybalt, she is at first horrified, but does not give up on Romeo. When told she must marry Paris, she ignores the Nurse’s advice to remarry and forget about Romeo and instead decides, “I’ll go to the Friar to know his remedy. If all else fail, myself have power to die.” Juliet would sooner die than betray her husband, and finally like Antony and Cleopatra, as well as Romeo, she would rather dies than live without the one she loves. Another parallel between Desdemona and Juliet, aside from this devotion to their husbands, is that they flout filial duty in pursuit of their desires. Both women marry secretly (although Desdemona’s marriage is soon made public), and both break social convention when they marry. In the source thought to have been most relied on by Shakespeare in writing Romeo and Juliet, Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye Of Romeus and Juliet, Brooke prefaces his story with an address to the reader, in which he tells the reader to take the story as a cautionary tale, the consequences of young lovers, “thrilling themselves to unhonest desire, neglecting the authoritie and advise of parents”, although the poem itself does not adopt this tone. Likewise, Thomas Rymer, a seventeenth century critic, saw Othello as an example of what would happen to young women who did not obey their fathers. When Desdemona marries Othello, Brabantio believes his daughter has been “abused, stolen…and corrupted”, whilst in marrying Romeo, Juliet breaks a time-honoured rivalry between the Capulets and the Montagues, as does Romeo (although this is undermined to some extent when he kills Tybalt). These three characters choose where there duty lies, and ultimately they do not betray it. Romeo and Juliet’s relationship in relation to the tension between duty and desire is quite different to Antony and Cleopatra’s and Othello and Desdemona’s. All three of these relationships defy social convention; Othello and Desdemona’s as well as Antony and Cleopatra’s to some extent as being interracial, and also Antony and Cleopatra’s for being illicit. Romeo and Juliet defy the rivalry of their fathers, but like Othello and Desdemona their relationship is legitimized by marriage. On of the great differences between Romeo and Juliet’s marriage compared to the other relationships is that at no point do they directly betray each other. Antony remarries in order to save his alliance with Caesar, and in Act 3, Scene 8, it is not clear whether or not Cleopatra really intends to give up Antony in order to strike a deal with Caesar. Othello is incapable of trusting Desdemona above Iago, even though what little evidence he produces is flimsy. But Romeo and Juliet always uphold their duty to one another as husband and wife, and there is no breakdown in there relationship. Even when Juliet hears that Romeo has killed Tybalt, Juliet quickly calms down and berates herself for being angry with Romeo and doubting his goodness, “And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband All this is comfort. Wherefore I weep then?

For Juliet, all that matters is that Romeo lives because she loves him and her duty to him is greater than her duty to her family. Romeo’s misplaced sense of duty in killing Tybalt, though it leads to Romeo and Juliet’s separation and instigates the arrangement of the marriage for Paris and Juliet, it does not lessen the love between the couple. This duty to maintain the grudge, on the part of Tybalt and other members of both households, seems somewhat misplaced. From the prologue, the enmity is described, “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” The rivalry is described as a “mutiny”, a rebellion against authority, and the idea of making “hands unclean” is an image that implies dishonour. It suggests the idea of having blood on one’s hands, responsibility for wrongdoing. This “ancient grudge” is presented as lacking reason. The Prince sets a decree against these two households to prevent further bloodshed. Furthermore, when Tybalt sees Romeo at the Capulet party, even Capulet stops Tybalt from starting a fight with Romeo. It is clear that this duty to fight is misplaced, and so Tybalt’s attempts to provoke fights are unjustified, but although Romeo may be seriously provoked, he is not justified in killing Tybalt and avenging Mercutio. But this duty creates a tension between Romeo and Juliet’s desire to be together, because no matter how they try to make light of it (“What’s in a name?”), it still exists and finally leads them to their deaths. In these plays, although the treatment of duty and desire is varied, it is only ever really resolved by death. Antony, Othello and even Enobarbus (though to a lesser extent) cannot act as soldiers when they are faced with overwhelming desire or emotion; they are incapable of stopping themselves and ultimately choose death. In contrast, though Desdemona, Romeo and Juliet in upholding their duty to the ones they love, die, they don’t compromise themselves to the pint where this is the only way out, and this is true to some extent for Cleopatra, though she does not seem to perceive a sense of duty. In Romeo and Juliet social duties and duties to one’s family mean that the couple are essentially doomed because they pursue their desire. In the end, though duty and desire are not always clearly in direct conflict in these tragedies, it is one tension that undermines and breaks down the characters, making death inevitable.