Julius Caesar

Brutus' Character Analysis

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is about the factors and results of Caesar's death. A group of conspirators including Marcus Brutus, think Caesar is too ambitious and they make plans to assassinate him. After the assassination, Mark Antony and Octavian come to power and fight at Philippi against Brutus and Cassius. Brutus is Caesar's best friend, but even so he kills Caesar. Brutus is a good man who is honorable, stoic, and gullible.

Everything that Brutus does in the play is honorable and has good-intentions. For example, Brutus is talking to the conspirators and he says, "No, not an oath... when every drop of blood... is guilty of a several bastardy if he do break the smallest particle of any promise that hath passed from him" (II.i.124-150). The conspirators want to swear their loyalty, but Brutus says they do not need one because if they are truly Roman, they would never break their word. Also, when Cassius is talking to Brutus about Julius Caesar, he says, "If it aught toward the general good, set honor in one eye and death i' the other, And I will look on both indifferently; For let the gods so speed me as I love the name of honor more than I fear death" (I.i.93-97). Even in the end, Mark Antony, Brutus' enemy, says, "This was the noblest Roman of them all" (V.v.75) when Brutus died. The decision to kill Caesar is for honorable reasons and for that, Brutus is truly an honorable man.

In addition to being honorable, Brutus is extremely unemotional. Brutus believes in Stoicism, which is a philosophy that represses any emotion and indifference to pleasure or pain, and throughout the play, Brutus continues to show this. A time when Brutus shows his stoicism is when Messala informs Brutus that his wife, Portia, is dead. Messala says, "For certain she is dead, and by strange manner" (IV.iii.217) and Brutus replies, "Why farewell Portia, We must die, Messala" (IV.iii.218). Brutus only says good-bye, not weeping or getting angry. Another example of Brutus showing no emotion is in Act V, Scene iii. Two of Brutus' friends, Cassius and Tintinius, die in battle. After their death, Brutus says, "The last of all the Romans, fare