Julius Caesar

Stoic: One who is seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain. Epicure: a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment. Throughout the novel, Julius Caesar's good friend Brutus worries that Caesar may be aspiring to be a dictator over the Roman republic. Caesar tried to hide his desire for power. One of the main things that you get from this novel is that Caesar is a fairly flawed person. He is unable to separate his public life from his private life it appears. He ignores prophecies and omens and even declared himself as great as the North Star. Based on his cocky attitude, often emotionless replies and laid-back style, I would have to put Caesar under the stoic category.

The conspirators accuse Caesar of ambition, and his behavior verifies this claim: Caesar does strive for total power over Rome, revealed in the respect he receives from others and in his perception of himself as a figure who will live forever in the minds of great people. However, in the long run, it is his distorted view of himself that proves to be his downfall. At first, he stubbornly refuses to care about the nightmares of his wife, Calpurnia, and the supernatural omens. Though he is eventually persuaded not to go to the Senate, Caesar ultimately lets his ambition get the better of him, as the idea of being crowned king proves too great to pass up. Caesar's sight of his public image helps bring about his death, since he mistakenly believes that the immortal status granted to his public self somehow protects his mortal body. Still, in many ways, Caesar's faith that he is immortal proves valid by the end of the play. By Act V, scene iii, Brutus is featuring his and Cassius's misfortunes to Caesar's power reaching from beyond the grave. Caesar's aura seems to affect the general outcome of events in a mystic manner, while also inspiring Octavius and Antony and strengthening their determination. As Octavius ultimately assumes the