Caesar and Pals

When confronting his seven sins, a philosopher once said, “You speak of your precious Pride, that quality for which you were named. But then you suddenly find yourself in grave danger and you seek to escape into the body of a human a lower life form you so despise. It's pathetic. You’re a disgrace!" Humans have been known to embody seven sins, pride being one of the largest and most influential. A person’s pride, or an inflated sense of one's personal status or accomplishments, causes them to act recklessly, doing anything in order to maintain a higher status than others. In Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, the character Julius Caesar is depicted as a leader with bloated confidence. Caesar’s tragic flaw is his pride in his ability to rule efficiently as someone higher than the common person, which eventually leads to his death.

Julius Caesar’s tragic flaw of pride led him to death by the hands of the conspirators. Caesar’s pride is first depicted with the soothsayer’s introduction, who tells Caesar, “Beware the ides of March,” (I. ii. 28). However, Caesar’s egotism makes him think nothing of it and calls the soothsayer crazy. Caesar also shows his pride in his conflict with Calphurnia, where he shakes off his wife’s suspicions of danger to go to a meeting. This is evident when Caesar says, “The gods do this in shame of cowardice. / Caesar should be a beast without a heart. / If he should stay at home today for fear. / No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well. / They Caesar is more dangerous than he,” (II. ii. 44-51). Caesar’s wisdom is clouded by his confidence in his power, keeping him from seeing the reason behind Calphurnia’s words. Caesar describes himself as “a beast without a heart” and to be “more dang...

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...If Caesar had noticed that something was off based on the conspirator’s behavior instead of focusing on the seat, then Caesar possibly would not have faced such a tragic death.

Julius Caesar’s tragic flaw of pride clouded his sense of reason and danger, which leads to his tragic death at the hands of Brutus and the conspirators. Multiple times throughout the story, Caesar was given chances to recognize the plot of assassination, in the forms of a soothsayer’s warning and a document that he needed to read, and every time he shook off those warnings. Caesar’s pride in his own abilities led him to believe that nothing could happen to him because he was an important person. But this overconfidence prevented him from finding reason in other people that were trying to save him. As the philosopher of faced his sins said, pride is a pathetic and disgraceful flaw.