Essay Questions
1. Describe the
changes that occur in the friendship between Cassius and Brutus.
2.
The characters in this play are very concerned with what it was and is to be Roman. What role does tradition play in Julius Caesar?
3. Does Caesar
have any real impact on the action of the play? Before his
death? After his death?
4. What role does the
supernatural play?
5. Though Julius Caesar
focuses on the struggles between powerful men, what role do the plebeians, or
common people, play? Are they as fickle as Flavius and Murellus
claim in the opening scene? How important is their support to the successes of
the various military leaders and the outcome of the play? The play depicts Rome at a time of
transition between republic and empire—a time in which, theoretically, the
Roman people are losing their power. What role do the people themselves play in
this transition?
6. Consider Brutus’s actions. Is he
right to join the conspiracy against Caesar? What are his reasons? Does he
choose to join the conspiracy, or is he tricked by Cassius?
How do Cassius’s motivations compare to Brutus’s? Are they more noble or less
noble?
7. Julius Caesar, a play about statehood and
leadership, is one of the most quoted of Shakespeare’s
plays in modern-day political speeches. Why do you think this play about
conspiracy and assassination might appeal to politicians today? Also, discuss
how this play might have been a reflection on Elizabethan politics, keeping in
mind that Queen Elizabeth,
like Caesar, was an aging, heirless leader.
8. Discuss friendship in the play. Consider Caesar and Brutus, Caesar and Antony,
Brutus and Cassius, Antony and Octavius, or any other pairings. Are
these true friendships or merely political alliances forged for the sake
of convenience and self-preservation? How do they compare with the heterosexual
relationships in the play—the relations between husbands and wives? Are they
more profound or less profound, more revealing or less revealing of their
participants’ characters?
9. Who is the protagonist in this play? Is it Caesar, who dies
well before the end but whose power and name continue on?
Or is it Brutus, the noble man who
falls because of his tragic flaws?
10. Consider theatricality in this play. Think particularly of
the scene
of Caesar’s murder (and Cassius’s reference to future productions of the
scene), the speeches in the Forum (particularly Antony’s), and the speeches given over the dead conspirators. How
do acting and rhetoric affect the events of the play? How do they interact with
politics? Does the play reference its own political power as a theatrical
production?
11. Discuss inflexibility in this play,
focusing on Caesar and Brutus. How is each man inflexible? Is this rigidity an
admirable trait or a flaw? Do the rewards of this rigidity outweigh the
consequences, or vice versa?