Introduction
William Shakespeare doubtlessly is on the list of the world’s greatest tragedy authors; for many his name is the first to associate with this genre. However, due to the depth and multidimensionality of Shakespeare’s creations, it is not necessarily possible to identify a certain character in his play as a tragic hero without analyzing it. The paper examines Marcus Brutus, one of the central personalities in Julius Caesar, to illustrate that he has the necessary characteristics of a tragic hero, while the title character is an anti-hero.
Defining a Tragic Hero
Primarily, it would be relevant to define a tragic hero to decide whether the given characters match it or not. The most illustrative way to do that is to enlist the special features of this type of literary device. The essential point is the dissimilarity of a tragic hero and an anti-hero, which, however, may be difficult to identify at first sight in each particular case.
Both of the types of characters under review are protagonists, in other words, awaken sympathy in the audience, and normally experience downfalls as resolutions of their storylines. The fundamental difference lies in the reasons; an anti-hero initially lacks virtues, such as courage or wisdom, and deserves the unwanted events that happen to him or her. A tragic hero, on the contrary, has certain attractive features, power, and charisma but faces misfortune as a part of the plot, which leads to his or her destruction. It is worth admitting, however, that such characters do bear a share of the responsibility for their punishment since it results from their actions, although is bigger than they deserve.
How an author can incorporate a tragic hero in his or her writing need specifying as well since understanding them simplifies distinguishing this type of a character from the other. An essential specialty of a tragedy is hamartia, also referred to as tragic flaw. These terms stand for a certain trait of a tragic hero that is the root of his or her eventual downfall, for instance, excessive pride or ambition. The negative change of the environment and/or circumstances, which makes the sorrowful resolution inevitable, is labeled a peripeteia and normally is sudden; frequent examples are a death of a dear person and a betrayal. Finally, catharsis is the term to describe the audience’s normal feeling for tragic heroes, which is a combination of pity and fear. By awakening, those readers and/or viewers, artists frequently seek to intensify the emotional response of those to the messages that they transmit through their works.
Markus Brutus as a Tragic Hero
Why Caesar Is Not a Hero
As apparent from the above description, a tragic hero is a protagonist, which nuance is the reason why the main character of Julius Caesar cannot qualify as such, although certain investigators insist that he does. Their argumentation comes down to the fact that a range of Shakespeare’s tragedies bears the names of their central characters, such as Hamlet or King Lear. The qualities of Caesar, meanwhile, make him not a hero, but quite an unpleasant and unstable personality, boastful, indecisive, and weak. Neither is he intellectual nor does appreciate intelligence; “He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous,” – says the ruler about Cassius, revealing his negative attitude toward smart personalities, which is not heroic by definition. Another point to consider is that Caesar appears only a few times throughout the plot and dies at the beginning of Act 3. This allows assuming that the author did not plan to make him the central character.
In one respect, Caesar may make the audience sympathetic. Thus, Cassius describes him in the following way: “Poor man, I know he would not be a wolf / But that he sees the Romans are but sheep”. Appealing to the viewers’ compassion, such a formulation may favor empathizing with the ruler; actually, throughout the first two acts, sympathy swings between him and Brutus. However, Caesar doubtlessly has negative traits, which make him a dictator and determine his death; he, therefore, matches the above definition of an anti-hero.
Why Brutus Is a Hero
Marcus Brutus, on the contrary, appears in the play as a sincere and dedicated politician, whose virtues are doubtless even for his enemies. Mark Antony, in particular, calls him at his funeral “the noblest Roman of them all.” His cordiality is apparent not solely from his political performance, but from everyday situations as well, attracting the audience. For instance, in the scene where Brutus’ subordinate, Lucius, falls asleep while playing music, an average officer doubtlessly would wake him up to reprimand. Brutus, meanwhile, not only lets Lucius sleep but also takes his musical instrument, so that he does not break it unintentionally. This scene may seem to be insignificant at first sight, but in fact, it is essential for estimating the degree of Brutus’ humanism, which makes him a hero, dissimilar from the title character.
What Makes the Hero Tragic
Brutus’ tragic flaw is the same trait due to which he appeals to the audience, specifically, his honesty. It is excessive, making the character naïve; simply stated, he cannot imagine how a human can be less honest than he is. Therefore, the reason why he agrees to join the conspiracy against Caesar is his conviction that the other participants, similar to him, seek to free Rome from the tyrant. However, they simply envy Caesar’s ever-growing power, but this becomes apparent too late when the ruler already is dead. Conspirators, led by Mark Antony, persuade the population to oppose Brutus as well as Cassius, in whom they see competitors on their way to the throne. This scene is a peripeteia, a sudden and inescapable turn to the worse for Brutus.
A catharsis happens when the character commits suicide to avoid the shame of losing a battle to Mark Antony’s troops. “I killed not thee with half so good a will,” – he addresses Caesar before putting his sword into himself. The phrase hints that Brutus prefers painful death to living with a stigma of a betrayer, of which variants he deserves neither. This is the highest point of his nobility and, consequently, the audience’s sympathy with him, which inspires those to speculate on how essential it is to balance between virtues and reasonable thinking.
Conclusion
Although Marcus Brutus is not the title character of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, he, not the Roman governor, is the tragic hero in the given case. Notably, Brutus is associated with hamartia, peripeteia, and catharsis, which are the basic characteristics of this literary device. The first is his excessive honesty, which eventually becomes fatal because he cannot imagine and anticipate the betrayal that is the peripeteia. Finally, Brutus’ suicide, for which he opts as a way not to live in shame, favors catharsis; this is another argument for regarding him as a tragic hero.