Examples Of Ignorance In Julius Caesar

Walking down the urban streets of downtown San Jose, a blind, elderly man sitting on the sidewalk suddenly jumps up with a finger pointed at you and screams “If thou walketh into Subway for a meal, thou shall receive an ill-roasted egg”. Hearing this, there are three actions triggered. One is to scoff at the man, run away, and still go to Subway. The second is to politely acknowledge what the man says, but considers the fact that eggs are not cooked by roasting and order scrambled eggs in your sandwich. The last way is to fully acknowledge what the man said and avoid going to Subway. Similarly, in the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare and edited by Barbara A Mowat and Paul Werstine, when presented with an omen, characters in Julius

Caesar take one of the three actions: ignore, misinterpret, or acknowledge. Julius Caesar disregards the warning heeded by a soothsayer. On the other hand, Calpurnia acknowledges the horrific dream about her husband’s blood flowing over Rome and tries to convince to stay home, which is successful until Decius influences him. In order to murder Caesar, Decius misinterprets Calpurnia’s dream to purposely influence Caesar in coming to the Senate meeting to kill him. In this play, Shakespeare creates characters that ignore, misinterpret, or acknowledge omens in an attempt to teach us to accept facts instead of twisting them to fit the circumstances.
In approaching a presented omen, one method is to altogether ignore it. When a soothsayer warns Caesar to “beware the Ides of March”, Caesar laughs at the man and brushes the warning off of his shoulders. (1.2.28) He does not seem to consider the fact that a soothsayer possesses the gift to see the future, for he calls the soothsayer a dreamer and continues on with
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his day.

Another case of Caesar’s ignorance is when he sees the soothsayer on the ides of March and brags of how nothing bad has happened to him yet. Wittily, the soothsayer responds with “Ay, Caesar, but not gone.” (3.1.2) Caesar teases the Soothsayer by saying that the Ides of March has come and nothing has happened to him yet. However, the day has not ended, so it is too early to say that nothing bad will happen to him. These quotes both show how Caesar disregards the soothsayer’s warning and even mocks him about the warning. Also, Caesar misses an important hint that would have caused him to reconsider his actions on the ides of March when Artemidorus tries to vey for his attention. “Hail, Caesar. Read this schedule...O Caesar, read mine first, for mine’s a suit that touches Caesar nearer. Read it, great Caesar.” (3.1.3-7) Artemidorus vehemently tries to get Caesar to read a scroll which also warns him of the danger approaching him. If Caesar had taken the time to read the scroll, he may be convinced that he is in danger. In contrast, he looks down upon Artemidorus and carries along with his day, missing a vital hint that would have changed his fate. For these actions, when brought information, Caesar doesn’t acknowledge omens but does the total opposite, ignoring it. Instead of completely acknowledging but not ignoring either, some characters acknowledge omens but misinterpret

them.
Other characters accept the information given to them but twist it in their heads to fit the circumstances. Because of this, another way of approaching omens is misinterpreting it. When seeing his wife cry during her sleep that he will be murdered, Caesar hurriedly sends an order for the priests to sacrifice an animal. The priests do not find a heart and bid Caesar to stay at home. However, Caesar twists the idea and explains “The gods do this in shame of cowardice./Caesar should be a beast without a heart/ If he should stay at home today for fear”. (2.2.44-46) He uses the idea of going to go to the Senate meeting because he does have a heart and cannot be declared a coward for being heartless represents cowardice. This presents how Caesar’s ambition will end
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up killing him.

In addition to that thought, “a beast without a heart” can be interpreted as the conspirators being cowardice. (2.2.45) They plan on killing Caesar because they assume that his ambition will make him take advantage of his power. As a result, the conspirators want to kill Caesar before he takes the crown. Calpurnia goes on to explain her dream to Caesar of how people will be bathing in his blood, and for a moment, is able to convince Caesar to stay home from the Senate meeting. However, Decius enters into Caesar’s home and influences Caesar to attend the meeting. “It was a vision fair and fortunate/…./ Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck/ Reviving blood, and that great men shall press…” (2.2.89, 92-93) Decius completely takes Calpurnia’s dream out of context by saying that Caesar should go to the palace since the dream conveys how he will be crowned king. He purposely did this to convince Caesar to go to the Senate meeting, so the conspirators could murder him. This causes Caesar to drop his wife’s interpretation of her dream and follow what Decius told him. Caesar and Decius misinterpret omens, both purposely and unconsciously, in order to fit a

circumstance.
Instead of ignoring or misinterpreting an omen, some characters actually acknowledge it. From seeing a furious storm during the night, Casca comments “A tempest dropping fire. / Either there is a civil strife in heaven, / Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, / Incenses them to send destruction” (1.3.10-13). Casca interprets the weather as an omen for bad things to come, which is correct. However, Cassius misinterprets the omen as the gods warning the conspirators of the actions of Caesar and what he might do to the Capitol if he gains control of the government. This example shows how two different characters interpret an omen. Casca correctly interprets the omen but Cassius, who went around running in the thunderstorm weather and didn’t get killed, declared the omen as a warning from God. Later in the play, Cassius encounters a soldier running away from the battlefield, which represents an omen. During a battle, a soldier would
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either keep his shield and win or lose his shield and die on the field. As Cassius runs to a desolate hill, he asks Pindarus to view Titinius as he approaches a troop. Pindarus misinterprets the men that surround Titinius as Mark Antony’s men. Hearing this Cassius demands Pindarus to kill him. “O, coward that I am to live so long/To see my best friend ta’en before my face!” (5.3.36-37) The reality was the fact that Titinius was surrounded by Brutus’s own men and they were actually winning the war at the time. However, the one time Cassius actually follows through his word of suicide is at the worst timing. When Titinius comes back to Cassius to report, he has killed himself. Cassius correctly interprets the omen, but due to Pindarus’ misinterpretation, Cassius decides to kill himself.
Not only to omens occur in Shakespeare, it also occurs in real life. The actions done by Caesar, Cassius, and Pindaris can all be related to an action we have done in our lives. Similar to the blind, homeless man shouting, it all comes down to us on how to approach omens. We have brains, whose purpose is to process information. We need to use them to analyze what the ma has said because in this day and age, anything can happen. If there was news of Subway causing an abundance of people sickness, it is wise to listen to the man. If there was nothing about Subway, there may be a chance that the omen should be ignored. In the end, it all comes down to you and how you approach an omen because Plato once said “Knowledge is a true opinion”.