Julius Caesar Flaws

Julius Caesar Essay Written by Shakespeare more than one thousand five hundred years after Julius Caesar’s death, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s well-known tragedy, is unique in that it contains two tragic characters, the senator Brutus and emperor Caesar. A play in five acts, Julius Caesar attempts to portray the assassination of Caesar, at that time victorious over Pompey’s sons, and the civil war that follows, culminating in the establishment of the Second Triumvirate. Although Caesar meets his end comparatively early in the third act, both Brutus and Caesar are adequately portrayed as men of high repute who, through flawed actions and decisions, meet an untimely end. In short, both are tragic heroes. The goal of tragedy is to evoke sympathy
Caesar’s tragic flaw is his pride, which leads him to believe he is invulnerable to mundane threats, which ultimately leads to his death. In act one scene one, tribunes Flavius and Murellus believe that “these growing feathers plucked from Caesar’s wings will make him fly an ordinary pitch.” Although their effort fails, the statement likens Caesar to Icarus, an important figure in Greek mythology. Icarus and his father Daedalus, trapped on the island of Crete, build feathered wings and try to escape. But Icarus, proud at what he has accomplished, soars too close to the sun, melts his wings, and drowns in the ocean. Shakespeare uses this classical allusion to hint to the reader that Caesar will meet a similar fate because of his pride. Caesar’s own language indicates this flaw: “Caesar is turned to hear,” he says to a soothsayer; unlike Brutus and Cassius, who use the humble “I” when referencing themselves, Caesar uses his own name and all the connotations of power that come with it. Caesar subsequently rejects the soothsayer’s prophecy, saying scornfully, “He is a dreamer. Let us leave him.” Caesar immediately disregards the soothsayers threat, showing that he believes himself invulnerable. Because of this belief, Caesar tends to ignore what displeases him and listens to only what
In act two scene two, Caesar receives word that the priests, upon performing a sacrifice, cannot find the sacrificed beast's heart. Caesar does not interpret this the way he should, which is to stay in his house away from threats, but instead thinks that “the gods do this in shame of cowardice.” Shortly afterward, Caesar reveals that wife Calphurnia saw his statue, “which, like a fountain with a hundred spouts, did run pure blood.” Caesar, under the sway of Decius, again misinterprets this bad omen to mean that his “statue spouting blood in so many pipes, in which so many smiling Romans bathed, signifies that from you great Rome shall suck reviving blood.” As Caesar is full of pride, he is constantly looking for signs of his superiority, and when Decius gives this interpretation, Caesar laps it up without a second thought. Caesar, who thinks himself immune to flattery, can be so easily flattered by anything that pertains to his pride. However, these mistakes are not enough to damn him. In the end, Caesar makes a fatal mistake by directly insulting the gods with the words “Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?” Caesar implies that he is equal to the Olympians, and they, to teach him a lesson, send the senators to stab him. By including this line, Shakespeare provides