Free Essay Sample «The Tragedy of Julius Caesar»

The play, “The tragedy of Julius Caesar” has some very important characters brought out. These are the symbols that William Shakespeare uses to plot the story line. A deep analysis of the Characters shows how effectively that Shakespeare uses them. Let us look into the characters one at a time.

Brutus

Brutus is portrayed in the play as a protagonist Character. In his conduct, he seems to be a man of good faith and one who goes to great extremes for the good of Rome. He comes out as great friend of Julius Caesar. As a friend of Caesar as he was, his observation led him to the opinion that his (Caesar’s) ambition could lead to dictatorship and autocracy in Rome. In this part, we see him take a radical step to kill Caesars. As the play goes on, we see the implications of this decision. He is portrayed as an extremely courageous man who loves Rome very much and expects the same love for Rome and sadly he fails to get. In his imagination, he planned to explain to the people about the importance of killing Julius Caesar and that now Rome is free from any impending tyranny. At the end of the play, we see Brutus portrayed as a hero in the speech delivered by Anthony. His character traits can be summarized as Brave, Selfless, Patriotic and Naïve

Julius Caesar

When we meet Caesar, at the beginning of the play, he is coming back to celebrate his victory over his former friend and Co-ruler in Rome. One of the traits that come out undisputed is the fact that Caesar is extremely arrogant. We see him very confident and unshaken as he announces in public, for all to hear, that his wife is barren. Still to the same effect, we see him tell Cassius that he dislikes him. He views himself as the only man who is not moved. Another trait of Julius Caesar is over confident. He is always excited about convincing himself of his own might. He is stabbed to death in a plot between Brutus and Cassius. According to Cassius, Julius Caesar deserves to die, all for the good of Rome.

Antony

We see Antony as some point become a great defender of Julius Caesar but this comes across as an advantage to him because he picks up the mantle from Julius Caesar and becomes one of the great leaders of Rome. He is portrayed as a great orator who has great convincing power. He is able to convince the people about the things he does. This outright distinguishes him from Brutus who becomes a victim of his own heroism. After the murder of Julius Caesar, Antony carries himself out as one who seeks friendship with the assassins, but with a secret scheme to kill them. His words are sweet and strong but hardly carrying any truth and are obviously for his own personal gain.

Cassius

Cassius happens to know Julius Caesar well. He is portrayed as one who is uncomfortable with the fact that Julius Caesar is becoming too popular among the Romans. He goes ahead to influence Brutus and converts him against Caesar. We see them conspire against Caesar and succeed to stab him to death.

Octavius, Casca, Calpurnia, Portia, Flavius, Cicero, Lepidus, Murellus, Decius

 These are some minor Characters that are used by William Shakespeare to construct the plot of the story. Octavius is Caesar’s adopted son and appointed successor. Casca is a public person who is opposed to Caesar’s power. Calpurnia is the wife to Julius Caesar.Portia is the wife to Brutus. Flavius is a rights activist. Cicero is a Roman senator well known for his oratory. Lepidus is a colleague to Antony and Decius is among the people who conspire against Julius Caesar.

THEME

Some of the themes that come out in the play include the following:

a) Arrogance

This is a major theme in this play. It is painted very well especially with Julius Caesar. His great arrogance leads him to failure to realize the effects of his deeds. This lands him to his own demise. He is proud to an extent of publicly telling Cassius that he dislikes and announcing that Octavius, his own wife is barren.

b) Power

The search and use of power is very well portrayed in this play. In a sense, the theme of power is pretty much pivotal to the plot of this play. The reason why Brutus and Cassius plot to kill Julius Caesar is the fear that he is becoming too powerful and is very likely to turn tyrannical. They even go the extra mile of sacrificing their own powers and to their very lives in the process of fighting absolute power

c) Betrayal

In this play, we see Brutus betray Julius Caesar supposedly for the good of Rome. We know that before Brutus is convinced by Cassius to participate in the killing of Julius Caesar, he was his good friend. He is made to believe that killing Caesar is for the good of Rome in that it protects Rome from tyranny that would have resulted out of the rule of Julius Caesar. He agrees to the plot of killing him and this a very high degree of betrayal

d) Persuasion

We see Cassius persuading Brutus into the plot to kill Julius Caesar. Brutus is a friend to Julius Caesar but he is finally convinced to participate in the death of Caesar. We also see Antony using his oratory skills very persuasively, to a point of bringing the Romans to a point of trusting him very much.

The play Wright uses the themes in the play to bring out the meaning and the effect of the    play in the mind of the reader. They give the play the kind of shape that William Shakespeare intended.

SETTING

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a play that was written the renowned play Wright of all times, William Shakespeare. It was written in the year 1599. The major event in the play is the assassination of the Roman dictator, Julius Caesar. There is a noticeable shift of the setting from Rome to the battle field where Brutus and Cassius are defeated. It is set up in a typical Roman environment of that time. This captures the historical events and happens of the day among the Romans and makes the play very real.

The author uses the seting to create a relevant background for the play. He just creates a scenario which would be expected to prevail in the kind of environment that he creates. It makes the play very relevant, real and interesting. The setting of the play therefore gets the reader’s mind to fit in the context of the play he is able to point out the tragedy himself