Essay: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare – Play Analysis

Closing Argument
Mark Antony’s Intentions
Righteous avenger or opportunistic tyrant? In the play, “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar”, by William Shakespeare, it is up to opinion to decide Mark Antony’s true nature. Although he plots to avenge Julius Caesar’s death by targeting the conspirators, which can be seen as extremely loyal because Caesar was a great friend, his intentions to gain absolute power and terminate anyone in his path seem quite iniquitous. Antony speaks of violent, dishonorable acts such as: mutilating infants, bringing havoc upon Rome, and torturing people so much that they would be begging for death. (Act 3.1. 294-301) Taking this into account, we can assert that Antony seems like a noble retaliator at first, but after reading about his inner plans and discovering how he interacts with other, we begin to understand how ruthless he is becoming in reality.
There are several reasons that we may believe that Antony is seizing the occurrence of Caesar’s death and using it for his own selfish reasons. First and foremost, we have to realize Antony’s extremely shrewd and manipulative intentions through flattery. After Julius Caesar’s murder, Antony comes to the Capitol and says, “Friends I am with you all, and love you all”, (Act 3.1.220) while shaking the hands of the conspirators. This tricks us and at first conspirators into thinking Mark Antony is on their side, but, in reality, he is trying to praise them to make it easier for him to carry out the plot of revenge. Antony also flatters the crowd and uses their sympathy to turn them against Brutus and the conspiracy. (Act 3.2.110-116) He uses cogent words to get exactly what he wants without having to exercise force.
Antony may seem virtuous and loyal, however, his darker qualities overshadow theses positive ones. Many times in the play, he chooses to violently slaughter every person and organization that poses an obstacle for his ultimate power. His soliloquy in Act 3 reveals his true intentions for Rome as he says, “A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; Domestic fury and fierce civil strife… Blood and destruction shall be so in use; And dreadful objects so familiar; That mothers shall but smile when they behold; Their infants quartered with the hands of war; hot from hell…With carrion men groaning for burial.” In these lines, Antony is imagining the reality in Rome after his plans are put into action. Mothers will be happy that their infants were mutilated and people would be begging to die because the torture they endure is too much for them to bear. If his ideal actuality is manifested in these lines, the horribly damaged state of his morals cannot be justified. Antony has even gone so far as to murder his own family to reach power and his inhumane ideas do not fit the ethical principles of a civil society.
One may argue that Antony’s mindset is fueled by the idea that he may righteously avenge the death of his great friend, Caesar, and that his loyalty to him is respectable. However, I believe that “loyalty” is just a guise Antony is trying to hide under to prove his actions to be right. We can infer that Antony does have a crude idea of morals, because he spared Lucilius’s life when he was pretending to be Brutus to save protect Brutus for being captured. Antony respected this act of honor and didn’t kill Lucilius. (Act 5.4. 28-30) Nonetheless, it seems that Antony has a very good idea of loyalty, as he was loyal to Caesar as Lucilius was loyal to Brutus, but he is a bloodthirsty individual that doesn’t value life itself and is willing to torture totally innocent people to clear the path for himself and get his way in the end. (The murdering of infants and his own family.)
In summary, we can conclude that Antony has evolved into a very dangerous tyrant and will cause quite a lot of destruction and the unjustified murders of many individuals. Stating that he is, in fact, very honorable and merely a “righteous avenger” is an ignorance of the play’s evidence and the dialogue characterizing Antony laid out for us by William Shakespeare in this play. His ideas may have begin righteous and warranted, yet they managed to turn him into an almost other-worldly despot whose personal intentions surpass the human realm of what actions are right and which are cruel and unacceptable in their nature.