Julius Caesar Tragic Hero Essay

In every story there is a hero, they can be anyone from the main character to someone who you only meet once. When shakespeare was writing his stories he took the idea of a hero and twisted it a bit. Shakespeare prefered to use a tragic hero, someone who does everything for the right reasons but ends up suffering in the end. In the article “Shakespeare’s Brutus: A Man Torn by Conflicting Values” J.L Simons writes “Shakespeare gives coherence and purpose to what must have appeared from his more encompassing point of view to be unresolved contradictions” (Simmons 61-62). He is speaking of how SHakespeare enjoyed shaking up what was normal in plays. The hero in a Shakespearean play is normally accompanied by a tragic flaw, this is their big shortcoming. The tragic flaw is a personality trait so it is something they can’t normally help, this trait is not a feeling the character has. This tragic flaw leads the character to make decisions that causes them to suffer a catastrophe. In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar the tragic hero is Marcus Brutus. A noble man who finds himself in a situation less than desirable, especially after the fact. Not only was Brutus a noble man, but as was many of his ancestors,

Brutus, a noble man, decided to aide the conspirators in killing Caesar because he believed this would be the best option for Rome. He did not do it for personal reasons, there was no gain to be had by Brutus if he killed Caesar, his intentions were purely in the best interest of the people. That was all good until after the fact when the intentions of the other conspirators were revealed. All of the other conspirators had underlying intentions for killing Caesar, some type of personal gain. This outcome occurred due to Brutus being gullible and seeing the best in those around him. He believed they had the same intentions he did when this journey began but by the end he knows this is