Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's strongest and most majestic female characters. She's complex and decidedly mercurial, but never less than herself: passionate, grandiose and larger-than-life. By killing herself, Cleopatra remains her truest identity, reserving all her greatness and mocking Caesar's triumph. Cleopatra is beyond precise categories and tidy synopses. Throughout the play she plays many roles of slut, enchantress, queen, tyrant, slut, and mother. His character was as changeable as the clouds that Antonio describes in Act IV, scene xv. Despite Romans' victory, she does not allow her multifaceted identity to be reduced to one of its simplest and basest components. So he refuses to be paraded through the dirty streets of Rome as a trophy of the Roman Empire while some prepubescent boy imitates his greatness. I have the pose of a whore” (V.ii.217). By killing Cleopatra she remains Cleopatra. [SparkNotes, Antony and Cleopatra, Analysis, Act V, Scene 2]The multifaceted Cleopatra seemed to have secret desires and unrevealed motivations. For example, she does not stick to the fourth act - the final resolution of suicide, until she knows what Caesar means for her. The fact that she retained some of her inventory suggests that she planned to survive even after Antonio's death. [GradeSaver, Antony and Cleopatra, Analysis, Act v, scene ii] All this testifies to the complexity and contradictions inherent in the queen's character. There are depths to Cleopatra that we glimpse but never gain full access to. In Antony and Cleopatra, the West meets the East, but does not conquer it, despite Caesar's triumph over the land of Egypt. Cleopatra's suicide implies that something of the East... middle of the paper... births of writers like Shakespeare, her name eventually became even more famous than that of her conqueror. [GradeSaver, Antony and Cleopatra, Analysis, Act v, scene ii]Works Cited:Book. Sole author Antony and Cleopatra, David Bevington p.128Book. Single author Shakespeare's Problems, Ernest Schanzer, p.162Electronic source SparkNotes, Antony and Cleopatra, William ShakespeareAnalysis, Act v, scene 2http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/antony/section10.rhtmlElectronic source SparkNotes, Antony and Cleopatra , William Shakespeare Themes and Motifs http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/antony/themes.html Electronic Source GradeSaver, Antony and Cleopatra William Shakespeare, Analysis, Act v, scenes 1-2 http://www.freebooknotes.com/ page. php?link=http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/cleopatra&book=26