 Her book ultimately connects the history of Antony and Cleopatra with the events depicted in Shakespeare’s play, and investigates how Shakespeare portrays the story, in terms of his use of language and character development.With her dominant interests in psychoanalysis, gender, and race, Adelman writes "Suffocating Mothers", exploring the depiction of females in Shakespeare’s works and the dominating effects of the maternal identity over the masculine characters.In short, the focus is on “the nightmare of femaleness that can weaken and contaminate masculinity."