Working my way through this play, I can confidently say that it had more thrilling suspense then most new literary content nowadays, so good job Julius Caesar for making something to last this long. I also can confidently say that this story has more loose ends and speculation than the TV show "Lost". If you have read Julius Caesar, then you know that Portia was "said" to have killed herself, and that Brutus and Cassius may have been ga... well never mind. You get the point, this story is pretty much an uncleanly cut rope, which is what makes it so interesting to me.
Now what else is plentiful in this story is the amount of false justifications that the characters say.
For instance...
"And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg—
Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous—
And kill him in the shell" (2.1 32-35).
This is a great example, because Brutus uses this justification to kill Caesar. According to Brutus, he is killing Caesar to preserve Caesar's now good image so that he will always be known as good. This is because if Caesar would have gotten the crown, he would have become a tyrant. This in itself may be true, but had Caesar lived on, he may have been the best leader in all of Rome. For all we know, if Caesar had lived on, he may have turned into Darth Vader. We just don't have enough proof to think either, and nor did Brutus.
This is just one of many of the so-called "faults" in Julius Caesar, but to me they make it better. To me, they helped me to stay interested in the play. Since these situations came up often, every time one occurred, I would keep reading to see each characters next "dumb" moment. And again, these dumb moments were pretty often as half of the characters justified their own death because of the death of a friend.
So in the end, I am very happy to have tried reading Shakespeare, and that this attempt turned out to be fruitful. Although before I finish, let me point out that at least half the characters died, but almost no sword fighting occurred throughout the entirety of the play. So applause to Shakespeare for being able to kill people without actually killing them. And to end this blog, I quote Julius Caesar, not from the play but from real life.
"Veni, Vidi, Vici."
Sources:
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/61618812.jpg
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/juliuscaesar
The second half of your blog is an interesting analysis of the play and the complicated nature of the central conflict - the internal and external conflicts that drive both main characters.
ReplyDeleteAn additional quote from the play would be appreciated and would add more to your analysis so you aren't focusing on reader response for the first half. It would even out the lenses you are using to examine the play, too.