A/N Just something I wrote for my English class because we just read Julius Caesar. I'm uploading it to get some practice, I've never done this before. I hope this doesn't really suck. Please review and tell me what you think!
Honor
Our society tells us that those who do the righteous things in life will be rewarded, while those who don't will have a miserable existence. We expect that if we do the right thing everything will always work out for us in the end. Unfortunately, that is not the way things work in life. In William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar we are shown that noble and honorable Marcus Brutus dies the same as envious, dishonest Caius Cassius. Foolish decisions and fate brought about the deaths of these two historic men, not morality.
Throughout this play Brutus seemed to always strive to do the right thing. Brutus was the only conspirator who had a just reason for assassinating Julius Caesar; even Marc Antony acknowledged this when he said, "This was the noblest Roman of them all. /All the conspirators save he / Did that they did in envy of great Caesar; / He, only in general honest thought/ and common good to all made one of them." (5.5.68-72). Brutus, however, was far too naïve. Brutus never considered that the other conspirators might have ulterior motives for murdering the great Caesar. Brutus's desire to do the right thing repeatedly turned on him or was used against him, especially by his own brother.
Cassius, clever and deceitful, knew just how to play his virtuous brother-in-law.
"Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see / Thy honorable mettle may be wrought / From that it is disposed…For who so firm that cannot be seduced?"(1.2.308-312), Cassius said after his
initial plight to have Brutus join his cause. Cassius knew he would need Brutus to win the favor of the people, and he used trickery to gain Brutus's loyalty. Cassius even said,
"If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, / He should not humor me."(1.2.314-315). Why couldn't Brutus see that by joining up with Cassius he was making a grave error? It could have been that he wished to be honored and remembered like his ancestor. This again was an idea put into his head by Cassius; "There was a Brutus once that would have brooked / Th'eternal devil to keep his state in Rome / As easily as a king"(1.2.159-161).
Whether Brutus was really as righteous as he was made out to be could be questionable. Brutus's actions displayed his desire to look good in front of the populace (like when he wanted to keep Caesar's death from looking brutal by sparing Antony). When Brutus sent to Cassius for money, he told Cassius, "For I can raise no money by vile means. / By heaven, I had rather coin my heart / And drop my blood for drachmas than to wring / From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash."(4.3.71-74). Brutus would not raise the money he needed by "vile" means for fear of damaging his image, but he was more than willing to take money raised in such a manner from Cassius.
Overall, though, I believe that just like everyone Brutus had his moments of desperation. Moments when he was not thinking clearly; like when he needed the money. Many other incidents in the play show that Brutus was a good and kind person. Brutus was fair and loving to his wife, Portia. Brutus shared his most important secrets with her. He was also caring and gentle with his young servant Lucius. I personally feel that Brutus was a good guy and that he did kill Caesar for all the right reasons; he had no personal agenda against Caesar unlike Cassius.
In the end, though, it really did not matter if he was moral or immoral, just or unjust. Brutus and Casssius met the same end; proving that bad things happen to good people. Brutus's bad choices and decisions sealed his and the other conspirators' fates. I believe it is more important to make intelligent, well thought out decisions than decisions that seem to be noble and make you appear to be the good guy before others. Maybe if Brutus had thought this way this play would not have been a tragedy.