Who is Julius Caesar?

Julius Caesar Blog

            Although the play is called Julius Caesar, he is not in many scenes and how Shakespeare defines his character is unclear. I see Julius as weak and like “an adder” (II i 14), which represents Caesar because if he is crowned/hatched, he will grow mischievous, forget the Romans and leave dust in their faces. Although there are many interpretations, his character is mostly revealed to the reader through others talking about him. When Brutus is debating whether to kill him he says; “That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder”(II i 22) and when Julius achieves the “upmost round” (II i 24) “he then unto the ladder turns his back”(II i 25), looks up and abandons where he came from by “scorning the base degrees” (II i 26). This means he will climb the ladder of power, and when he reaches the top he will abandon the Romans he climbed over. Cassius does not support Caesar and he tries to convince Brutus to kill Caesar. Cassius describes Caesar as weak and he uses lots of sarcasm when he speaks about him; “he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus” (I ii 135-136), and us “petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves” (I ii 136-138). Here he refers to Caesar as a Colossus (sarcastically) which is a huge important like figure, and he says that everyone has to follow him only to find themselves to die with no honour. Caesar was cocky and arrogant, but he did great things for Rome in the past. Yet he was too old and weak at the time he was killed.

I commented on Matthew Clark’s blog