Resource Description

Act 1

Scene 1

• Tension between patricians and plebeian’s
• Treating like plebs like machines ? class conflict
• Pun on soles = accusation of morally corrupt practices, which is true ? foreshadowing
• Iambic pentameter (10 syllables/5 beats)
• Caesar has hubris = hamartia = pride

 

Scene 2 

• Caesar was epileptic AKA not a true roman

Reasons For Killing Caesar:

1. Weakling (had to have been saved)
2. Epileptic
3. Girly

• Predestination is not free will

Scene 3

• Supernatural events ? animals behave strangely, fire is weird
• Pathetic fallacy 
• Cassius blames Caesar for events
• Cassius and Brutus could be blamed for the events ( they anger the gods)
• Brutus causes the chaos he seeks to stop

Act 2

Scene 1

• Rising action
• Brutus decides to kill Caesar
• Brutus’ ancestors are king removers/revolutionaries

• Why does Shakespeare open Julius Caesar with comedy and such minor characters?

Shakespeare opens Julius Caesar with comedy and minor characters to engage/capture the audience’s attention and comment on the state and mindset of Rome, especially its peasants. This is seen in the quote “A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles” where a peasant cleverly insults the higher class Murellus by using his trade as a pun to accuse him of corrupt business practices while still not getting in trouble. This humour and double meaning sets the scene for context between the nobles and commoners.

• How has Shakespeare captured the fickle nature of the crowd in the opening Act?

Shakespeare has demonstrated how swayed the crowd are by victory even against someone they have once loved. This is demonstrated in the conversations between Plebeians and Patricians such as the lines, “ Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?..

..O you hard hearts, you cruèl men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day with patient expectation

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome…

…And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?” These lines demonstrate the fickle way that the crowd reacts to victory and the pull of power. There is no demonstration of loyalty instead people follow like sheep. 

• How are the strengths and flaws of Cassius, Brutus and Caesar made evident in the opening scenes?

Caesar? 

• demonstration of hubris “Forget not in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calphurnia, for our elders say, The barren, touchèd in this holy chase,Shake off their sterile curse.”
• Way he treats peasants “He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass!”

Cassius?