In this intricate analysis of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra Faber proposes that the ambivalence toward the maternal object is a primitive defensive maneuver, the intensity of which varies with the ambivalence expressed toward the subject by the mother. He considers that the deepest urge of the Western hero is to resolve the mystery of maternal ambivalence. He sees Antony and Cleopatra as tragically flawed in their ability to love (although Cleopatra transcends this in a few brief instances) because they have no self with which they can love. Symbolically, as Rome