Julius Caesar Loyalty Essay

Loyalty is a recurring theme throughout the Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, and it is a major theme which helps drive the plot. It can either be showing faithfulness to a friend or faithfulness to one’s country. If these two collide, one would have to choose between the two. This affects the decisions made throughout the play, especially the decisions made by Brutus. Whether it’s his loyalty to Caesar or his even greater loyalty to Rome itself, we can see how his choices based on loyalty ultimately decide the fate of Caesar and the fate of Rome. Brutus’s two conflicting loyalties influence the ultimate downfall of Julius Caesar and the uprising of the Roman people. Even though Brutus’s love and loyalty for his friend Caesar

I urged you further, then you scratched your head
And too impatiently stamped with your foot.
Yet I insisted; yet you answered not,
But with an angry wafture of your hand
Gave sign for me to leave you (II.i.249-255).
Brutus refuses to tell Portia, his wife, what is keeping him up at night, he refuses to confide in his wife about his inner conflict regarding the conspiracy. He shows a loyalty to his wife because he knows that if she were in on the plan, she may be targeted afterwards for revenge. Even though Brutus had a long conflict with himself about whether or not to betray his loyalty to Caesar, eventually his loyalty to Rome won overall. Brutus finally agrees to kill Caesar because he believes it will be what’s best for the country; His fellow conspirators do it because of envy and jealousy. Since Brutus doesn’t see what he is doing as wrong, he defends his actions taken against Caesar. He says, “If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
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