Character study of Antony in Julius Caesar.

Antony

Out of all the main characters in Julius Caesar, I chose Antony to write about simply because he is so interesting. The first personality trait he shows is obedience, as revealed in Act 1 Scene 2. In lines 9-12, Caesar tells Antony, “Forget not, in your speed, Antonius/To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say/The barren, touched in this holy chase/Shake off their sterile curse.” In lines 13-14, Antony replies with, “I shall remember/When Caesar says 'do this,' it is perform'd”. It isn’t much of a dialogue, but in it reveals that Antony obeys Caesar without question. In other words, Caesar could tell Antony to jump, and Antony would ask, “How high?” Another character trait of Antony is cleverness. This is revealed in Act 3, Scene 2. In Antony’s famous monologue starting on line 82, he “turns” the crowd from supporting Brutus and the other murderers of Caesar to being against them. Not only that, but he does it without making appear as if he didn’t mean to. By merely presenting facts that make the conspirators look bad, and then repeatedly “supporting them”, he turns the crowd against them. Antony says in lines 97-103, “He [Caesar] hath brought many captives home to Rome/Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill/Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?/When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept/Ambition should be made of sterner stuff/Yet Brutus says he was ambitious/And Brutus is an honourable man”. Antony appears to support Brutus by calling him an honorable man while presenting facts that clearly go against what Brutus claimed about Caesar. Antony is also loyal. After Caesar is killed in Act 3, Scene 1, Antony mourns the death of Caesar, and he begs, “the voice and utterance of my tongue--A curse shall light upon the limbs of men/Domestic fury and fierce civil strife/Shall cumber all the parts of Italy/Blood and destruction shall                                              be so in use”. He puts a curse on the men for killing his beloved Caesar. The last trait I will touch on is compassion. In Act 5, Scene 4, some of the soldiers from Antony’s army apprehend Lucilius. Instead of allowing them to treat him badly, Antony tells them to, “keep this man safe/Give him all kindness: I had rather have/Such men my friends than enemies. Go on/And see whether Brutus be alive or dead/And bring us word unto Octavius\' tent/How every thing is chanced.