Brutus's Transformation Into A Caesar example essay topic

Brutus's comment on the impending battle of Philippi is more precisely true than he realizes: "this same day must end that work the ides of March begun". Indeed the inevitable results of the process initiated on the Ides of March. All the conspirators acknowledge that Caesar has avenged himself on them. Those who died by the sword died not just by any sword, but by the very same sword. Brutus exclaims, "O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!

Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords into our own proper entrails". As he dies, Brutus calls on Caesar's spirit to be still. Historically, Caesar's spirit, as Shakespeare well knew, was not pacified by the death of Brutus. Octavius has already shown that he is every inch a Caesar.

Not only Octavius, but Brutus too has been transformed into a little Caesar. Caesar's ghost introduces himself to Brutus as "thy evil spirit". Even if the ghost had not given us this huge clue, Shakespeare has made it clear that Brutus is becoming everything he feared Caesar would be. Comparisons are drawn between Brutus and Caesar even before Brutus has committed himself to the conspiracy. In act 2, Brutus spends a sleepless night in the orchard, and this is followed by a lovely scene with his wife Portia; in the very next scene Caesar is awakened by Calpurnia's cries, and Caesar and Calpurnia discuss whether he should go to the Senate. These domestic scenes, unusual in the political-military world of Julius Caesar, create an early suspicion that Brutus and Caesar are living parallel lives.

Brutus's transformation into a Caesar begins from the moment he agrees to aid the conspirators. He immediately takes charge, dismissing the counsel of his fellows with little consideration. Brutus has become precisely what he feared Caesar would become: Having attained the topmost rung of the ladder, he now scorns "the base degrees by which he did ascend". Brutus's domineering leadership of the conspiracy is most obvious in his argument with Cassius in Act 4, scene 3. Condemning Cassius for writing letters in support of Lucius Pella, whom Brutus found guilty of accepting bribes, Brutus charges Cassius with accepting bribes himself. When Cassius threatens him, he responds, "There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats / For I am arm'd so strong in honesty / That they pass by me as the idle wind / Which I respect not".

Brutus's inflated sense of virtue and honesty, and the feeling of invulnerability that results from it, resonate with nearly everything Caesar utters in the play. Most ironically of all, the conspirators' daggers interrupt a speech in which Caesar compares himself with the "northern star" which of all the stars "doth hold his place.".