Shakespeare's Tragic Hero in "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar"

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After hundreds of years The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare has been studied, reviewed, taught, read, and immortalized in films. Why would a voluminous amount of resources be poured into this simple play? As with Shakespeare’s other works, this play has been a great tool for English majors, authors, and any interested to have an insight on human action and reason. The tragedy follows Cassius and Brutus, the protagonists, as they seek to overthrow Julius Caesar from monarchy in Rome. They plan to achieve this by killing him then taking the power for themselves. These two and six others succeed in killing Caesar but did not take power. Instead, three other men as triumvirs: Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus have decided to split the empire into three sections. The climax and resolution of this tragedy ends with the three triumvirs crushing the unsuccessful usurpers. One of these, Brutus, was, is, and will still be an interesting character for all to study in life. This was due to Shakespeare and history displaying him as a tragic hero, yet unsung in most historical records. To put it briefly, a tragic hero is a figure who has a high standing in society or a situation and causes his/her own downfall but is enlightened in the end. Brutus showed these qualities from beginning to end by giving numerous flaws in his mind and acting upon them, then by becoming completely enlightened; however, this enlightenment also includes his climatic death.

To begin with, many have looked at the reasons of this tragic hero’s need for enlightenment. This was from all the flaws and faults Brutus carried. Brutus throughout the whole play has made many blunders. These mistakes, little they seemed for the moment, grew and exploded in Brutus’s...

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...ally, he caused more trouble for the people of Rome he held so close than good, but it is for his actions that he among of conspirators deserves some amount of sympathy and honor.

Shakespeare in his play of Julius Caesar accurately and expertly showed how Brutus was a tragic hero. By creating the protagonist appear as the antagonist at first glance yet have him be enlightened minutes before death is only a skill Shakespeare seems to possess. Because of this any many other skills Shakespeare used in his other works, do many people for different reason study the characters of Brutus and tragic heroes similar to him. Thanks to Shakespeare, Brutus will remain a famous or infamous character throughout all of history and will be called upon for one of humanity’s greatest mysteries: themselves.

Works Cited

Elements of Literature. Orlando: Holt, Winston, Rinehart, 2007.

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