Question

Who is the tragic hero in Julius Caesar?

Accepted Answer

Although the play is named after Julius Caesar, Brutus is best suited to the role of tragic hero. He dies at the end of the play rather than in the middle and is obsessed with personal honor and public duty, to the extent that his sanctimonious obsession could be seen as a tragic flaw. The audience also sees much more of his interior life and mental struggle than it does of Caesar’s.

Answer

There are four principal contenders to be regarded as protagonists in Julius Caesar: Caesar himself, Brutus, Cassius, and Antony. Of these four, Caesar and Brutus best fit the model of Aristotelian tragic hero. They both occupy a high position in public life, and both fall from this eminence partly through a character flaw (hamartia, to use Aristotle’s term) but also partly due to events outside their control.
The fact that the play is named after Julius Caesar suggests that he should be regarded as the hero. Chronology, however, is against him. If Shakespeare had ended the play with Caesar’s assassination, there would have been little doubt of his status. However, it ends with the death of Brutus at Philippi, and with Antony’s short but poignant eulogy on “the noblest Roman of them all.” This is enough to tip the balance in favor of Brutus, and his position becomes conclusive when one considers how much more of Brutus’s interior life the audience sees than it does of Caesar’s.
Brutus is, in many ways, an unattractive tragic hero. He is always talking about his honor, and looking down on Cassius as his inferior in this respect. This sanctimony can be regarded as an unusual tragic flaw, and might be less insufferable if he were ever right in his disputes with Cassius, but he is as impractical as he is arrogant. However, Caesar’s coldness and pomposity are equally unappealing, and much of Brutus’s character is attributable to the way in which the Romans were seen in Renaissance England, as obsessed with honor and public duty.

Answer

Brutus is clearly the tragic hero in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Brutus possesses the qualities of a tragic hero and his tragic flaw leads to his unfortunate demise. Brutus is a celebrated politician in Rome and hails from a prestigious, aristocratic family. In addition to being widely respected and revered throughout Rome, Brutus is depicted as an honorable man with integrity, who is destined for greatness. Unfortunately, Brutus's tragic flaw is his need for nobility, which makes him naive and vulnerable to shrewd politicians like Cassius. In Brutus's attempt to make noble decisions for the good of Rome's populace, he agrees to join the conspirators and participates in Julius Caesar's murder. Brutus also naively believes that Mark Antony will not cause any issues following Caesar's assassination and even allows him to speak at Caesar's funeral, which causes social upheaval. Brutus's tragic flaw eventually leads to his unfortunate death as Brutus commits suicide by running through his own sword toward the end of the Battle of Philippi. Overall, Brutus is a tragic hero because he is a virtuous, celebrated individual from a revered family, who has a tragic flaw that leads to his unfortunate downfall.

Answer

Although Julius Caesar is the one who is assassinated in Shakespeare's classic tragedy about power and self-delusion, Brutus is clearly the "tragic hero." Far from being an evil murderer, Brutus, as Mark Antony mockingly calls him, really is an honorable man. He is reluctant to be pulled into the conspiracy to kill Caesar, but, because he believes that Rome is in serious danger of becoming a dictatorship, he agrees to participate. He convinces himself that this great wrong will make a great right: Rome will return to the idealized days of the Republic.
But as the death of Caesar is seized upon by other authoritarian figures and the conspirators fight among themselves, Brutus recognizes his self-deception. He has killed a man he once regarded as his friend for nothing. Rome continues on its path toward empire, and a noble man has betrayed his true self. He dies knowing it.

Answer

Brutus is clearly the tragic hero in the play. His character is developed according to the criteria of Shakespeare's other tragic heroes; he is a good man of high position whose downfall occurs because of a fatal flaw in his own character, a flaw of which he is unaware. His fall is tragic, therefore, because he is an admirable person who ultimately destroys himself.
In the play's beginning, Brutus is a well respected Roman senator whose love of country is unquestioned. His integrity is strong and his principles firm. Brutus tells Cassius, " . . . I love / the name of honor more than I fear death." It is his sense of honor and love of Rome that draws him into the conspiracy to murder Caesar, and once a part of it, his downfall is unavoidable.
Brutus' fatal flaw is that of idealism and naivete. He lives in the world of honor and assumes that everyone is as honorable as he. Brutus cannot recognize deceit in others; thus, he is easily manipulated by Cassius through a series of deceptions. At the end of Act I, Cassius says of Brutus in regard to his joining the conspiracy, "Three parts of him/ Is ours already, and the man entire / Upon the next encounter yields him ours."
After Caesar's assassination, Brutus lets Antony speak at the funeral (an honorable thing to do), and then is driven from Rome after Antony turns the crowd against the conspirators. Brutus' downfall occurs swiftly thereafter; he commits suicide to avoid capture in battle. At the play's conclusion, however, Shakespeare reminds his audience that Brutus had once been a good and great man, thus emphasizing the tragedy of his destruction. Antony declares: "This was the noblest Roman of them all."

Julius Caesar

Who is the tragic hero in Julius Caesar?

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