Brutus a Tragic Hero

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In the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, the character Marcus Brutus is a tragic hero. A tragic hero is defined as a character that has some type of tragic character flaw, which eventually leads to making a serious error in judgment, and leads to his defeat. In Julius Caesar Brutus displays the traits of a tragic hero throughout this play. Brutus’s attempt at doing what he thinks is right, yet doing the wrong thing fits the definition of a tragic hero. However, the factors that show that Brutus is a good man is his noble personality, ability to trust others blindly, and his caring nature toward others. The main reason that Brutus deserves the title of a tragic hero is because of his noble personality. Throughout the play Brutus never deceives anyone. Even though he killed Julius Caesar, for what he believed was for the good of Rome, not to betray Caesar. After Caesars death Brutus expresses himself in his speech “as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death.”(III, ii, 43-46). Brutus did not kill Caesar because he wanted revenge or power as the other conspirators did. He was willing to sacrifice his own life for the good of Rome if that was needed. Brutus’s noble personality is also revealed before Caesars’s assassination. When the conspirators gather at Brutus’s house at night, Cassius suggests that Mark Anthony should also die with Julius Caesar or he could carry on Caesar’s work. But Brutus disagreed and said “let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.”(II, i, 166). Brutus believes that Caesar’s death should be a sacrifice with a purpose behind it, not a mindless slaughter. Other characters in the play also realized that Brutus had no bad intentions for killing Caesar. Even though Brutus killed Antony's best friend, Antony still recognized Brutus as "the noblest
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