Mob Mentality In A Gathering Of Old Men And Julius Caesar

“Neither a man nor crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” This is a quote that was once spoken by Bertrand Russell and describes what mob mentality is. Mob mentality is when instead of following your judgment, you go with the group in order not to be against them, or in other words just going along with what everyone else is doing. In both works “A Gathering of Old Men” and “Julius Caesar,” there is a connection between both of the authors using mob mentality in their writings. In the book “A Gathering of Old Men” there are several examples of mob mentality throughout the story. One of those examples would be the old men and how they stuck together to protect Mathu, …show more content…
Such as, in “A Gathering of Old Men” the group of old African American men that feared fix were against Luke Wills’ group who feared Luke. Throughout the whole book, they were against each other and these groups were together because of the act of mob mentality. Instead of going off of their own opinions they just followed along with the crowd. It was the same idea in “Julius Caesar”, the plebeians against the conspirators. In this case, the conspirators’ opinions were influenced by Cassius’ thoughts instead of their own. Likewise, the plebeians’ thoughts were influenced by Mark Antony. In both of these works, the idea of mob mentality plays a huge role in how these stories develop. Without the idea of mob mentality, there would not be a plot to the story considering all throughout both books both of the sides are conflicting. The big connection between these two is how the writers attempt to set one of the sides as the bad guy instead of leading it up to the reader. For instance, in “A Gathering of Old Men” it is known that Luke Wills and Fix are the bad guys even though the old African American men were the ones that killed Beau in the beginning. The way they portray Luke and Fix has an effect on the reader that automatically labels them as the villains. So in a way, the audience is being influenced by mob mentality and instead of looking at the situation by themselves they conform to the opinions of the writer, the same idea goes for “Julius Caesar”. In “Julius Caesar it is just assumed that the conspirators were the antagonists in the play, but in reality, it could be argued that the citizens of Rome were in the wrong. Yes, the conspirators did kill Caesar but it is what they truly believed was for the best. While on the other hand, the townspeople were out there killing people the night before which people thought to be omens. Which means that