Tragic Hero: Caesar vs. Brutus What would be considered a tragic hero in a story? A tragic hero is considered a character with good intentions that possess a fatal flaw in their character that ultimately results in their demise. A prime example of this trait would be Brutus in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Brutus has three main flaws that lead to his downfall. Brutus’s morals, sense of honor and love for Rome, and his ability to be fairly easily manipulated all lead to his eventual downfall as the story goes on. Brutus lets his morals and sense of morals for other people cloud his vision and trust people and ideas throughout the story that he should not have trusted. After the conspirators killed Caesar, Brutus had allowed Antony to speak to the commoners after Cassius had even suggested that it was a bad idea. The decision to let him speak resulted in the people of Rome starting a riot and him having to flee. This also ultimately caused the war against Antony and Octavius that ended up taking both Brutus and Cassius’s life. …show more content…
His decision to join the conspiracy and kill Caesar was strongly influenced by his honor and love for Rome. Brutus was bent on not letting Rome be ruled by a tyrannical leader, who he believed Caesar to be. Throughout his speech preceding the killing of Caesar, he talks repeatedly about his own honor and the honor he had for Caesar, showing that honor is an important factor in his decisions. At the end of the play, his strong sense of honor shows again with him refusing to be able to be taken prisoner, committing suicide before the enemy troops are able to reach him and capture
20-22). Brutus admits to never seeing evidence of Caesar’s ambitiousness but he knows that as a person grows they often forget their roots. Before his death he also mentions that he is surer in killing himself than he ever was before killing Caesar. This shows that he could never convince himself that murdering his friend would be best for Rome. Throughout the play, Brutus has conflicted feelings about killing Caesar which lead him to become the tragic
Joining the conspirators lead to him killing Caesar and being proud of his actions for example “I honor him: but, as he was ambitious I slew him.” Brutus says this right after killing Caesar in his speech to his people. He still believed what he did was a good thing by what Cassius tells him. His gullibility led him to kill his best friend. Not only did he lose his friend but he loses his wife as well.
Brutus won the hearts of Rome's with his true love for them and the state, and honesty. While Caesar won them over with lies, and false hope for a better future. As Brutus believes, nothing should be done without honor which he shows by killing Caesar. “For let the gods so speed me, as I love the name of honor more than I fear death.” Says Brutus as he's quickly pulled into the conspiracy plot to kill Julius Caesar.
Another one of the flaws that caused his downfall is that he trusted the people around him too much. Even though he had many flaws that consequently lead to his death he still had really positive attributes and was a good person with good intentions. One of the many flaws, big or small throughout
In many pieces of literature and in life, there are examples of tragic heroes. Tragic heroes are characters or people that hold great, virtuous traits who eventually face a tragic demise. From our previous reading, we were introduced to a tragic hero by the name of Brutus, a man who killed his best friend for the presumed good of Rome. Brutus faced a downfall in the end of the story and suffered, losing his wife and his life, and knowing that his actions were all for nothing.
In Julius Caesar written by, William Shakespeare, we can see the different ways that Brutus is the tragic hero. A tragic hero is someone, who is usually noble, that makes an error in their judgement which ultimately comes back to haunt them. We can see that this is the case from Brutus because he makes a bad judgment decision. Brutus was a noble man that was well-respected and spoke very well. His great friend Julius Caesar was getting too tyrannical and he had to do something about it.
At this point in the play, Brutus was making all of the decisions for the conspirators. He would not listen to Cassius when he should have. For example, if they would have killed Antony he would not have had to flee Rome, another thing he should have listened to is that Brutus should not have let Antony make a speech in act 3 scene 2 lines 73-105. Antony was able to use pathos during his speech to turn the people against the conspirators, while Brutus tried using logos. If Brutus would have used a different approach he would not have had the people turn against
A tragic hero is a character who has the potential to have heroic qualities, but their fate is a tragic downfall. Aristotle defined a tragic hero as “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment”. Some tragic heroes in literature are John Proctor in The Crucible and Macbeth in the play Macbeth. It is possible for two characters to be labeled a tragic hero, but the audience can feel differently about them.
This is some of the traits of s tragic hero that Julius caesar possesses. Back in 44 BC, Caesar was murdered by politicians who feared that he was too obsessed with his own importance. I think that Julius’s fate was definitely not deserved, he only wanted to help out his kingdom he just made a few mistakes that could’ve been prevented. He used his power to carry out much-needed reform, relieving debt, enlarging the senate, building the Forum Iulium and revising the calendar. Dictatorship was always regarded a temporary position but in 44 BC, Caesar took it for life.
For example, Brutus at first wanted no part in the assassination in Caesar, he had respected him and believed Caesar was fit for Rome. After, Brutus’ peers threw fake letters into his window that
Like most villains, Brutus took action before looking for the positive outcomes of Caesar's rule and had little to no hope in him when it came to becoming king. After killing Caesar, Brutus causes an uproar and chaos among the townspeople. The Romans were going crazy in confusion and rebellion as a result of Brutus’s actions, which can be explained in act 3 scene 3 when a townsperson states “To Brutus’, to Cassius’, burn all!” At this point in the play, the Romans are realizing what Brutus had caused and how he betrayed the people of
This does not necessarily mean he cannot be a tragic hero. Only having one characteristic just means a character with more tragic hero qualities would be a greater bet. Based on Aristotle’s characteristics of a tragic hero, some would believe Brutus is the tragic hero. Brutus possesses over half of the tragic hero qualities rather than Caesar. “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” teaches people to never make judgements until they have experienced the same situations that other people have.
Although the tragic hero normally describes a literary character, the concept of a tragic hero can be applied to real life people in history. For example, Napoleon is military genius who brought France to the world stage as never before through his wars. Napoleon, a man who started as an average boy from Corsica rose to the highest echelons of power and nobility in France through revaluation, conquest, and talent (cite 3). However, Napoleon's hamartia,or tragic flaw, was his greatest asset and his greatest hindrance he was a general like no other at his time; a tactician who won even when He was outnumbered unfortunately, this also led to him overextending the French empire and his armies leading to his downfall (cite 2). Additionally, Napoleon's conquests led to a broken army and overwhelming
What is a Tragic Hero? To Aristotle a tragic is a person of a noble birth, who has a trait that will lead to his/her downfall and realizes the weakness, making the audience become emotional. In “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar”, by William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, the emperor of the Roman Empire is the tragic hero. He is very arrogant and ambitious, he realizes about his flaws when he gets assassinated, and causes the audience to become emotional when he is killed.
Doing research on these tragedies was a great experience for me since I got the chance to learn many new things about these famous Shakespeare’s tragic heroes. Even though these plays are based on real historical figures, they are classified as tragedies. Julius Caesar was one of his early tragedies that linked his history plays with the mature tragedies as Macbeth and Coriolanus. What is with Shakespeare’s plays that they are studied even after 400 years? Maybe is for his unmatched style and language, or for his imagination.