Personality
Ambitious and sexual, Cleopatra works hard to be everything to nearly everyone especially those in power. Although addicted to opium she has enough will to set plans in motion to secure her foothold on Julius Caesar by purposely impregnating herself before an encounter with him to ensure a birth that she hopes will give her political clout in Rome. Later, her alliance with Mark Antony and her support of his conflict with Octavian ultimately lead to her undoing.
Cleopatra sometimes looks to her servant and advisor, Charmian, for affection and guidance; the women are affectionate, but the mistress-slave relationship remains clear.
Read more about this topic: Cleopatra (Rome Character)
Famous quotes containing the word personality:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its own revenge: from the lower depths comes a regressive form of spontaneity: raw animality forms a counterpoise to the meaningless stimuli and the vicarious life to which the ordinary man is conditioned. Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations, and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick through a garbage pile for food.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not intrude upon each other. The Navajos are not much in the habit of giving or of asking help. Their language is not a communicative one, and they never attempt an interchange of personality in speech. Over their forests there is the same inexorable reserve. Each tree has its exalted power to bear.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)