Cassius is also extremely jealous of Brutus’s relationship and influence over the character of Julius Caesar. “Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus: If I were Brutus and he were Cassius he should not humour me.” This was also taken from soliloquy. It shows that Cassius wants to be loved by Caesar so he gains more power and is more liked among the other senators, it also show how if he were liked like Brutus is by Caesar he wouldn’t even take part in the conspiracy but because he isn’t he decides to take part in Caesars murder. It also shows Cassius revealing his true motives at the end of that soliloquy.
Cassius and the conspirators want Brutus to join them is because he is trusted by the Roman people and can help them out by influencing their support after the murder has occurred.
Shakespeare uses the weather and there bad omens to reveal character and to inform the audience of pending doom. In Act 1 scene 3 Cicero and Casca are talking about the strange events which occur just before Caesars death. “A common slave-you know him well by sight-held up his left hand, which did flame and burn like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand, not sensible of fire, remain’d unscorch’d.” This is one of the omens that were unusual. Cassius at this point didn’t care about these weird omens, showing he has no conscience towards anything that doesn’t concern him. Shakespeare uses these bad omens to put the audience into suspense because it means someone is going to die soon as I this scene the next day in the play Caesar dies. There was a storm in this scene which was another of Shakespeare’s effects which could have been some people banging pots and pans behind the stage. All of these sound effects were used to set an atmosphere and can also determine what is going to occur in the play, such as death and anger.
Prior to Caesar’s murder, Brutus refuses to have Mark Anthony killed; this was one of his mistakes. “He shall be satisfied; and, by my honour, depart untouch’d” Brutus does this because he doesn’t feel it is necessary to kill any one other than Caesar, this shows his weakness that he isn’t the type of person who thinks everyone who needs to die shall die, he would rather work other ways around it. His reasons for letting Mark Anthony live are so he can keep a little of his honour and nobility.
This mistake they lost the war towards the end of the play, because Brutus let him speak to the plebs and persuade them to fight for him. Cassius as a leader of the group would have been better because he chose the better choices but he accepted Brutus’s ideas because he sees him as superior with his decisions. Brutus also makes another of these mistakes in the war at the end where he says they should march their army down to face this army, even though this would give Brutus’s and Cassius’s army a disadvantage of energy and supplies but an advantage over the army size. “From advantage shall we cut him off, if at Philippi we do face him there, these people at our back.” This is said by Brutus before the final battle of the conspirators while he and Cassius were arguing over their tactics. If he hadn’t of done this their army may have had a better chance.
One of Cassius’s main features displayed towards the end of his life is grief as his best friend was thought to be killed by the enemy forces so he committed suicide by stabbing himself with the dagger that he wielded as helped to kill Caesar. “O, coward that I am to live this long, to see my best friend ta’en before my face!” This is what he says when he sees that Titinius has been surrounded by horsemen brandishing their weapons, which he mistakes for the enemy so he assumes that he is taken captive by the enemy. This feeling of grief is also felt by Brutus earlier than Cassius’s when Pontia, his wife committed suicide. So they both have feelings of sadness, because when you see Cassius in the play you would expect him not to go to such great measures as to kill himself when his friend died. But this also would suit his character by sneaking out of the battle and not dying honourably in the battle.
Shakespeare presents Cassius as a good judge of characters, able to manipulate most people over time using different methods such as black mail, verbal, treachery and more. He manipulates Brutus’ support by forging letters claiming the people of Rome and other important figures wanted him to be king of Rome. Brutus is easily influenced by Cassius because he is naïve and trusting but his intensions are always honourable. Cassius is the type of person that has power but no-one really likes. Shakespeare makes him like this because it suits a murderer, devious cunning and malicious. This would show what people thought of murder and make it more believable.
Shakespeare uses a wide range of feelings to portray all of his characters: happiness, sadness “Come down, behold me no more. O, coward that I am, to live so long, to see my best friend ta’en before my face!” anger, jealousy, love, grief, fear “I fear our purpose is discovered.” Also there are many others. Shakespeare used a lot of symbolism by making the characters use a lot of metaphors and similes to show their feelings and how they perceive things. “The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores”
Shakespeare uses characterisation, stagecraft and language skilfully, to show the differences in character between Cassius and Brutus. He uses a wide and varied range of linguistics such as metaphors, similes and poetical language to make the play appropriate to all types of people in those days. This is how he writes all his plays. Throughout this play we see Shakespeare using many ways to reveal the characters of Brutus and Cassius, these are: what they say and how they say it including the soliloquy and his language choices, what other characters say about them, their actions, how they respond to others and how they react to certain situations to show their conscience. All of these factors add up to reveal the total extent of Cassius and Brutus through the duration of this play.
