The Tragedy of Brutus
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The Tragedy of Brutus
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar was mainly based on the assassination of Julius Caesar. The character who was the mastermind behind the assassination was, ironically, Marcus Brutus, a senator and close friend to Julius Caesar. But what would cause a person to kill a close friend? After examining Brutus relationship towards Caesar, his involvement in the conspiracy and his importance to the plot it all became clear. Brutus had one particular reason for killing Caesar and that was for the good of the people and the republic. Throughout many of William Shakespeares plays, a tragic hero is acknowledged and the tragic hero in this story is Brutus.
A tragic hero is a courageous figure of noble birth that possesses a tragic flaw. A tragic flaw is a weakness in a persons character which eventually leads to their downfall. In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, there have been a lot of arguments over who the tragic hero is. A few people say that Brutus is the tragic hero. However, others argue that Julius Caesar is the tragic hero. After learning more about these two characters, a conclusion can be drawn. Brutus is indeed the tragic hero of this play. Brutus was an extremely influential person in Rome because of his wealth. He was respected because his moral personality and willingness to sacrifice for the good. In order to be the tragic hero, the hero has to have at least one tragic flaw and Brutus has many. A few being easily manipulated along with being too trustworthy and impatient. These qualities brought about Brutuss downfall. His easy manipulation quality shows when Brutus did not want to take part in the conspiracy, but Cassius was persuasive enough to manipulate Brutus into agreeing. Cassius had convinced him that it was what needed to be done. Brutus quality of impatience is shown most when the conspirators generate their plan a couple days before and did take not enough time to realize the consequences of their actions. If they had taken more time to think things through and had planned for the worst to happen, they would have been ready for what would happen next. After the killing of Caesar and the rioting of the plebeians, the funeral had the two armies ready to fight, which again showed signs of impatience
At the beginning of the play, Brutus was a much different man than he turned out to be in the end. After Brutus decided to go along with the idea he expected it all to happen too easily. He was too confident that their plan would work exactly like they had planned and that nothing could go wrong. Brutus was slightly over confident going into the battle, He advanced too quickly which led to the killing of many of his men and his own suicidal efforts. Brutus was very noble and everyone around him saw that. However, they saw it as a good quality when in turn it led to his death. In trying to do the right thing for the good of Rome he was making bad decisions. His only reason for killing