53 pages • 1 hour read
Cleopatra and Frankenstein
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Addiction and Depression
Content Warning: This section includes discussions of drug abuse and death by suicide.
In this novel, addiction symbolizes broken childhoods and deep-held insecurities. Frank’s abuse of alcohol, for example, is a manifestation of his struggles with the stresses of his life and his past traumas. His mother had an alcohol addiction, and their link haunts and influences him. Initially, Frank fights with the idea that he has a problem. In denying his addiction, he denies the unresolved traumas of his childhood and the challenge of sustaining a successful adult life.
Cleo’s depression is similarly symbolic of larger conflicts. Cleo is haunted by her mother’s death by suicide and was forced to deal with the world without her. Cleo struggles with the reality that she, like her mother, can die from suicide. She folds into the loneliness of being motherless and alone in the world. Cleo believes she doesn’t always need to medicate her depression, highlighting that she doesn’t want it to be a problem. She wants to distance herself from it so she can put space between herself and her mother’s death. However, like her depression, her mother’s death will always be with her; it must be confronted, acknowledged, and managed rather than repressed or denied.
By the end of the novel, Cleo and Frank realize that most, if not all, of their friends in New York City are addicted to drugs. Thus, addiction becomes a symptom of living in a fast-paced urban environment characterized by capitalism.
The Sugar Glider
The sugar glider symbolizes Frank’s rock bottom and represents the beginning of the end of his marriage to Cleo. It is a small, fragile, unique creature, just like Cleo. And, like Cleo, it needs a home and someone to love and be loved by. The sugar glider represents hope for Frank and Cleo’s relationship. Purchasing it as a gift shows that Frank notices Cleo’s sadness and wants to heal it.
Cleo’s embracing of the sugar glider represents her capacity to give love and care. The creature brings Frank and Cleo together. But when Frank accidentally kills the sugar glider while drunk, the creature begins to mean something darker, and shows how Frank is incapable of caring for others. For example, even though he thinks he’s taking care of Cleo, he doesn’t help her when she is lonely and depressed. Through the sugar glider’s death, he learns that taking care of someone or something requires more than money.
The demise of the sugar glider represents a schism in Frank and Cleo’s relationship. It reflects Frank’s betrayal of Cleo’s emotional safety and security. Cleo’s revelation that she is not as secure as she thought with Frank precipitates their break-up. Thus, the sugar glider is a symbol of transition.
Cleopatra/Frankenstein
Frank and Cleo’s nicknames for one another represent their characters. Frankenstein is the monstrous creature from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818). He is so dehumanized that he is not even given a name outside of his creator, Victor Frankenstein, and is known in the novel as The Monster. Frank’s costume for Halloween portrays the version of Frankenstein as seen in films, where he is green and ghoulish.
The character Frankenstein is made up of different dead body parts, and is physically atrocious. He is capable of great violence and intense lapses of compassion. But inwardly, he is much more complicated. He is also misunderstood. His violence is born from society’s rejection of him and abandonment by his father, his creator, Victor Frankenstein. He is incredibly intelligent and feels emotions just like any other human. Had he been raised with more compassion, he may have had the chance to be wholly good and not descend into outbursts of vengeful violence.
Frank is hardly as violent and murderous as Frankenstein’s Monster. But he does have layers to him that are both hard and vulnerable; these can be traced back to his childhood, just like Frankenstein’s Monster. Like the Monster, Frank sometimes inadvertently hurts the people he loves and wants companionship and acceptance.
Cleo’s nickname is Cleopatra, after the legendary Egyptian queen. She is often thought of as the original femme fatale, with beauty and cunning savvy. Cleopatra took the Roman emperor Julius Caesar as a lover, an affair that helped solidify important political relationships between Egypt and the Roman Empire. Later, her marriage to Marc Anthony further consolidated her power.
Like Cleopatra, Cleo is powerful in her own being. Her beauty and youth draw people to her, and she has fortitude like Queen Cleopatra. Like Cleopatra, Cleo’s affair with Anders and marriage to Frank reveals her attraction to powerful men. Men are willing to do anything for a chance with Cleo, echoing the male gaze that Cleopatra was able to manipulate for her kingdom’s gain.
Cleopatra died by suicide when her kingdom was on the brink of defeat; so too does Cleo attempt to die by suicide. Cleopatra is a complex woman who is a legendary historical figure. Cleo is characterized with a similar type of unique power.
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