Julius Caesar True Villain

Improved Essays
James Eubanks
Period B Honors
Ms. Andrews
3/24/16
The “True” villain of Julius Caesar
There have been many trivial villains of many stories. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is just of one many of his plays who have a hard to detect villain, from the Cassius, a man with loose morals, to Caesar, a man who is told to have been a “tyrant” without many showing of this behavior. The story follows Marcus Brutus as he is led to kill Julius Caesar along with Caius Cassius and other conspirators. The story ends with Brutus having Strato hold out his sword as Brutus runs onto it to kill himself from the fear of being captured by Marcus Antonius’s Army. This leads to the belief that Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) is the main villain
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Caesar is not shown to do anything other than kill Pompey and punish Flavius and Marullus for taking down decorations (evil but still only a small incident). Antony says himself when alone with Caesar’s corpse he says “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” (3.1.271). This is showing how he automatically thinks the only acceptable answer for getting rid of, or capturing Brutus and or Cassius is by causing a war, only showing how he is not thinking of a better possible solution to the problem and instead believes the best solution is the most dangerous out of all the other possible solutions that he could use like he could have just plotted against Brutus as Brutus did to Caesar which only really endangers himself and his conspirators, or simply see the error if he follows through with the plan to cause a war. None of which he considers as a possibility for solving his issues and goes straight to war is the …show more content…
Cassius can be seen to be more knowing of what is needed for a plan to succeed as shown when after Antony is allowed by Brutus to speak and live, due to his strict sense of nobility. Antony believes that his own cause, the avenging of Caesar is more important than anything. Antony says just after sending the Plebians away “Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.” (3.2.213), Showing how Antony used his ability to convince people what he wants to, based on his own motives. Cassius has this same ability, but he does not use for most of the play because he respects Brutus to not toy with his feelings towards what he does, showing how Cassius put aside his own plans and ideas for the supposed betterment of Rome and the respect to Brutus, meaning that Antony is doing this out of pure greed for revenge of the death of Julius Caesar while Cassius is trying to accomplish what he believes for the greater good of

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