Brutus's Virtue In Julius Caesar

Within the play Julius Caesar, as an audience, we are asked to question every character’s virtue. As the play progresses these lines between good and bad men become increasingly blurred, making it harder for the audience to distinguish the wrong from the right. Ultimately it would appear that every character is filled with both evil and good and it seems as though throughout this play Shakespeare is trying to highlight the unrealism attached to such simplistic ideas. Within Medieval England morality plays were very popular, with one character being clearly bad and another clearly good, but throughout Julius Caesar the audience is shown that every person has their evil side and that life needs a more complex explanation than a simple ‘right …show more content…
This battle of words takes place during Caesar’s funeral, where both Anthony and Brutus speak in a bid to win over the large crowds of plebeians. There is a major difference between the two character’s and how they address the crowds. Brutus speaks first and reasoning with the crowd using logic; Brutus uses superlatives to argue his case more persuasively: “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” (3.2.20) Through juxtaposing Caesar and Rome, Brutus hopes to simplify his argument against Caesar in order for the plebeians to understand more clearly. This is reinstated by the fact that Shakespeare had Brutus speak in prose which was the style of speech used by the common man. Through speaking in prose Shakespeare aims to make Brutus appear a ‘friend’ of the plebeians as he addresses them in their own language. Yet Brutus’s oratory is brief and lacks emotion via his bid to detach the two conjoining concepts of Caesar as the leader of Rome, instead hoping to isolate Caesar’s death by focusing on his love of Rome and his sacrifice for the people. Thus despite winning the fickle crowd over, his argument is not substantial enough to keep the crowd loyal throughout Anthony’s