The Ways Shakespeare Reveals the Characters of Brutus and Cassius in the Play Julius Caesar

The Ways Shakespeare Reveals the Characters of Brutus and Cassius in the Play Julius Caesar

The play 'Julius Caesar' written in 1623 by William Shakespeare

depicts the scenes in Rome around 44 BC. At the time Rome was a

republic lead by their head senator 'Julius Caesar' lead them. His

great leadership led to the jealousy of many of the other senators

resulting in a conspiracy to assassinate him. The two main

conspirators are Marcus Brutus and Caius Cassius, Shakespeare presents

them as very different characters who have their own and very

different reasons for murdering Caesar.

In the start of the play Brutus and Cassius are attending the feast of

Lupeical, celebrated by the people of Rome. Brutus is a very close

friend of Caesar and admires and loves him as a leader and a friend.

"I love him well." Brutus asks about shouting from the crowd and

Cassius answers him. He is talking about Caesar to Cassius as he said

before that he fears Caesar becoming king. It shows how he loves and

admires Caesar and his respect for him is huge, it also shows how

Cassius feels for Caesar at the beginning of this play.

Brutus and Cassius stand together all throughout this play, they

defend each other and work together by making the plan work using each

others ideas. Cassius starts to manipulate Brutus when he hears the

roar from the crowd and says: "I fear…" Cassius sees this as a

weakness in Brutus and starts to see that he can by changed easily.

References to Brutus' honour are made by other characters throughout

the play. "Well, Brutus, thou art noble" Cassius says this in a

soliloquy at the end of scene two and Shakespeare says this to show...

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Tiber chafing with her shores"

Shakespeare uses characterisation, stagecraft and language skilfully,

to show the differences in character between Cassius and Brutus. He

uses a wide and varied range of linguistics such as metaphors, similes

and poetical language to make the play appropriate to all types of

people in those days. This is how he writes all his plays. Throughout

this play we see Shakespeare using many ways to reveal the characters

of Brutus and Cassius, these are: what they say and how they say it

including the soliloquy and his language choices, what other

characters say about them, their actions, how they respond to others

and how they react to certain situations to show their conscience. All

of these factors add up to reveal the total extent of Cassius and

Brutus through the duration of this play.