The Changing of Brutus and Cassius Throughout William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

The Changing of Brutus and Cassius Throughout William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar, is one of his most

inspirational, influential and greatest tragedies. Although Julius

Caesar is set in Rome over 2000 years ago, it explores themes that are

relevant to our own modern times and would have been relevant to

Elizabethans in Shakespeare's England. One of the main issues explored

in the play is the nature of government or people and power.

Shakespeare looks in detail at the choices and life Roman citizens had

and what their place was in relation to the various kings of Rome. In

real life, Julius Caesar emerged to be similar to all the previous

kings of Rome in that he was a dictator who was feared by the Roman

people rather then loved or valued. In the play, Shakespeare portrays

Caesar as a character that has become so influential and strong that

he effectively controls the Senate, something which the Republicans,

especially Cassius and later on Brutus, will not stand for. This play

also relates to the Elizabethan audience, as they would also have been

asking what the internal affairs of the Queen and government had to do

with them. Queen Elizabeth was a forceful ruler and had survived many

plots against her, and it is clear to see that William Shakespeare has

taken some of these incidents and superimposed them over this play in

the form of the Conspirators.

At the start of the play we see that both Brutus and Cassius are

deeply concerned about the popularity and attention Julius Caesar is

receiving, Cassius more so than Brutus. At this time in the play, the

whole of Rome is in a state of confuse...

... middle of paper ...

...e becomes more powerful, just like Caesar and 'falls a victim

to those very vices for which he killed his friend, Caesar". Both

Brutus and Cassius refer to themselves in the third person in a

self-admiring fashion. Cassius is a callous man consumed by jealousy,

and at the beginning of the play, was envious of Caesar's growing

popularity. He is an observer of men, guided by personal

considerations. He has a personal hatred for Caesar as a tyrant,

unlike Brutus who hates all tyranny, regardless of who the tyrant

actually is. He is easily alarmed and has a 'choleric', rash temper.

Both the characters are not actually different, but their personality

traits arise at different points in the play in contrast with each

other, and this has arised inadvertently in the way William

Shakespeare has written the play, Julius Caesar.