Question 3 (‘Brutus Is a Victim of His High Standards and Principles’. to What Extent Do You Agree with This)

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Brutus is entirely a victim of his high standards and principles. Cassius manipulates him by using certain persuasive techniques regarding his honour to get Brutus to join the conspiracy. Brutus’s personal opinions of the deed are displayed at the funeral to represent that he actually is a victim regarding his principles. Along with that, his nobility remains constant even if he is a part of the conspiracy. Cassius mocks Brutus’s honour in order to manipulate him to join the conspiracy. To indicate this, Cassius says ‘we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves’. Cassius uses ‘peep’ and ‘petty’ to direct themselves as weak and helpless compared to the powerful Caesar. The strong onomatopoeia of the ‘p’ is used in order to make those words specifically stand out in order to make Brutus aware of what Cassius thinks of themselves compared to Caesar, which could upset him as he believes that all men are equal. The use of ‘walk under’ metaphorically represents that they are lower class to Caesar and that he is in control of everything. This gives Brutus and the readers the impression that Caesar is above everyone in the mortal world and that he is god-like and powerful. Again, this is mocking Brutus that he is worthless compared to the mighty Caesar. The main mockery of this quote is ‘dishonourable’, because it contrasts with Brutus’s true personality of honourability. Thus, telling him that he is low in status and dishonourable is quite striking to Brutus due to being a righteous soldier and Shakespeare is possibly using this as a way to get him to listen to what Cassius has to say in order to break these weak titles. Thus, this entire quote is hinting that if he doesn’t do anything about Caesar’s power, he will be a dishonourable man of Rome, the country will be controlled by ‘one man’ and he will remain helpless. This

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