Unsuccessful Influential Wives

The wives in Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, play key roles in this play. In Shakespeare's tragedies, plentiful amounts of people die. The wives’ influence could have prevented their husbands’ deaths. Due to Caesar’s persuasion by a fellow servant, and Brutus’ persuasion from a fellow friend, their wives do not influence them, which leads them to their deaths. They are supportive of their husbands. Julius Caesar married Calphurnia. Brutus married Portia. Both wives of these two men try to influence their husbands. Influencing their husbands in different ways, both are not completely successful. Calphurnia tries to warn Caesar to stay away from the capitol on the ides of March due to her nightmares of his death. Portia tries to get Brutus to share his plans with her because she is his wife and deserves to know what burdens him.

Calphurnia is not as powerful and courageous as Portia is when trying to influence her husband. Calphurnia has a bad dream. She dreams that Caesar will die. Calphurnia insists and begs Caesar not to attend the Senate. Since Calphurnia’s bad dream does not persuade Caesar to stay, she tells Caesar about all the evil and bad warnings that nature has been giving. Just as animals can predict when something bad is about to happen and leave the area they are in, Mother Nature is predicting that something horrible will happen and that Caesar shall not stay. Calphurnia describes the horrid things happening in the streets of Rome. She tells Caesar about how the watchmen saw a lioness give birth, how graves opened and the dead walked, and how the warriors fought in the clouds and made blood rain down onto the Capitol. She even told Caesar how the noises all around were of horses neighing, dying men gr...

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...warning signs. He goes off to the Senate where conspirators, some who are his own friends, literally stab him in the back. Brutus tries to be stoic with his wife. He does not want his wife to know his emotions, so he does not reveal his secrets. He does not tell his wife about the plan to kill Caesar. The death of Caesar results in a war where Brutus is killed. Because of Brutus’ death, Portia dies as well. Due to the husbands’ own thoughts of themselves, they ignore their wives. The wives are right and very supportive. Calphurnia and Portia could have saved their own and their husbands’ lives if their husbands would have just listened to them. The two women tried their best to be influential, but they were not successful.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of Julius

Caesar. New York: Washington Square, 1992. Print.