Julius Caesar Dramatic Suspense Analysis

It is surprising but true that audiences or readers would have come to the play knowing the outcome of the battle yet Shakespeare tends to create dramatic suspense and tension. John Summons defines 'dramatic tension' as "how you keep an audience hooked to the story of your play. It is about creating and maintaining an audience's involvement in the 'journey of your play." The playwright achieves this by using dramatic tragedy and twists, structure of the play and the characters and their interactions.
Dramatic suspense and tension are interrelated with dramatic irony where as the audience knows something the characters do not. In fact, this makes the audience anxious to see if the characters find out things in relation to the fate of the tragic hero or if the characters find out too late which is often common. For instance, in act 2, scene 3, the audience knows Antony's future which is how the soothsayer warns him of the turn out. The soothsayer says "If thou dost play with him at any game, thou art sure to lose." This shows that the soothsayer warned Antony not to stay with Caesar as Caesar's fortunes are better than his whereas we, as the audience knows that Antony loses the battle at sea with Caesar. …show more content…
Conclusively, Shakespeare creates dramatic tension, even though the audience knows the ending, by the more dramatic action progresses, the more political tension as he focuses on both Caesar and Antony who have different ideals. Shakespeare allows the audience to make assumptions based on the way he structured the play, thus the audience will want to see if their assumptions are right by the end of the play especially in relation to flaw of the tragic hero that prevents him from achieving his objective. Also, audiences wait for the characters to learn the truths of the situation and the moment of