Ricardo Sánchez October 30, 2014
9th Advanced English Section 02
Second Research Assignment: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
I. All about Power
A. How do you define power?
1. According to the Oxford Dictionary, power is “The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events”. While this can be accurate in some situations, it is not always so. Many people think that it simply consists of being able to control someone or something to have things go their way. However, power can be seen in many different situations. For example, some may be familiar with the phrase “knowledge is power”. In my opinion, this means that the more you learn, the better you see and understand…show more content… All about Julius Caesar
A. What did power mean to Julius Caesar and to his enemies?
1. To Julius Caesar, power meant being in control of Rome and his empire. This can be seen in many instances, including the reforms he made during his reign as dictator. For example, he changed the Senate from 300 members to 900, but made a great amount of his allies into new Senators. As a result, the majority of the assembly would be in favor of Caesar’s decisions and the ones against him would barely have any say in the matter, so the dictator’s preferred laws were always passed.
Meanwhile, Caesar’s enemies, the Senators that did not have much political power, were waiting to exploit any weakness the dictator might show to gain control again. They believed that Caesar was only making these improvements to the city to keep the population happy and maintain their allegiance to him. They believed that, eventually, Caesar would go mad with power and make terrible decisions. As a result, the conspirators’ main goal became killing Caesar to get back the influence they had lost when he gained the throne. His enemies believed that with this leader gone and power back in their hands, they would restore what they thought to be order to the Roman…show more content… “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
a. This quote reflects on what Caesar thought power brought to him. He thinks that with a great amount of it, he can dominate whatever he wants with minimal effort. With power, everyone will kneel before him and nothing will be able to stop him in his conquest to expand the Roman Empire under his rule.
2. “It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the hungry-looking”
a. Contrary to the quote above, these words show the negative consequences that power brings. Because he makes all the decisions, Caesar made many enemies that did not agree with them. Most of these enemies, however, were the poor citizens that were left living in terrible conditions after his reforms. He believed that he should be especially scared of these people because they are the most likely to attack him out of a mixture of hatred and desperation.
3. “Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous.”
a. Caesar believes that to be in control of a population, one must surround himself or herself with people that are lazy or would not take matters into their own hands. Since they are unlikely to have devious and complicated plots to seize the power from him, they would be the last people to betray