Julius Caesar play Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Julius Caesar play - Essay Example Julius Caesar is one of the most popular Shakespearean tragedies and is also one of the strongest political plays written by Shakespeare.It is a play that depicts the political conditions of Rome during the rein of Julius Caesar. Bloom and Loos also state, ‘Platter notes that he witnessed an ‘excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar’ suggesting that he realized the significance of the play as a work about the death of the republic and the rise of imperial Rome’(281). The play is a very pertinent portrayal of a political system and the rules that curtail in order to become a good ruler or to be able to acquire the throne. Shakespeare highlights some of very negative aspects of human nature in this play and these aspects also act as major themes of this play which includes deception, jealousy, ambitiousness, revenge and fickle moral and ethical values. The word play in this drama is very strong as Shakespeare through his use of s imple words has been able to deliver all the strong emotions like anger, hatred and love very effectively to his readers and audience. 2. Scene 2 Act 3 This scene commences with Brutus’s speech that he delivers in front of the crowd of the common citizens of Rome in which he makes an attempt to justify his actions i.e. Caesar’s murder. Scene 2 of act 3 holds a lot of importance in the play as it is an anti climax to Caesar’s death as this scene leads to the avenging of Caesar’s murder... 2.1. Crowd and Readers/Audience a Single Entity One of the unique qualities of Shakespeare’s play is that any scene that involves a crowd or mass public in such scenes readers or the audience is also become a part of that crowd. It is through the delivery of the dialogues and the gestures of the characters or actors that give a feeling of oneness to the readers with the crowd in the play. Shakespeare uses his words in such a manner that it keeps the audience or the readers enthralled with all the action taking place in the play and the spectators can actually feel and live the emotions that a particular scene projects as is also true in the case scene 2 of Julius Caesar. 2.2. Purpose This scene is important to the play because it acts as an anti thesis to the negativity that Brutus had instigated about Caesar. Although Caesar dies midway through the play but the character traits of Caesar that are unveiled in Antony’s speech in this scene act as an instigator that keeps his memory alive through out the play and his existence is felt through the rest of the acts even in his absence. Moreover figuratively it also makes the reader or audience realize the importance of words in general because basically in this scene it is Brutus’s word against Antony however the power of diction is reiterated in this scene as it is observed that earlier the crowd agreed with Brutus that Caesar was the villain as stated in the text, ‘This Caesar was a tyrant.’ Also ‘We are blessed that Rome is rid of him’ (75, 76). However when Antony takes the stage his speech is more full of grief and anger and hence the crowd is swayed and the agree that actually Brutus is the culprit as also mentioned in the text,