Manhood and Honor Theme Analysis

Julius Caesar is a play preoccupied with questions of masculinity, with characters constantly examining their actions in light of their relationship to accepted ideas of manly virtue and strength. Over the course of the play, those accepted ideas are presented in surprisingly ambiguous ways. For example, Julius Caesar himself suffers from weaknesses that earn onlookers’ scorn, yet he still inspires fear, and he doesn’t falter in the face of likely assassination. Some of the “manliest” actions are displayed by a female character—Brutus’s wife, Portia—who apparently longs for greater involvement in the world of men. And Brutus, though mocked by Antony for questionable honor in the aftermath of Caesar’s killing, is universally praised as a noble man after his own death. By portraying the varied motivations and perceptions of these characters, culminating in their respective deaths, Shakespeare argues that one’s manhood and honor are ultimately proven by the way a person perseveres to the end of life and faces his (or her) death.

Caesar’s manliness is questioned throughout the play. In Act 1, Caesar reportedly asks that his throat be cut rather than endure the shame of the crowds’ displeasure at his being offered kingship by Antony. And yet, the strain of the moment causes a spell of the “falling sickness” (an epileptic seizure). When Caesar recovers, he asks onlookers to attribute his untoward words to his illness, and while some “wenches” among the crowd forgive him, Casca, reporting this to Caesar’s detractors, dismisses the whole scene as mere “foolery.” This scene suggests that Caesar’s illness makes him inherently variable and unreliable, appealing to women but not taken seriously by most men. Ironically, his perceived ambition is still enough to cause those men to want to eliminate the threat that he poses. Later, however, Caesar goes resolutely to his death, spurning Calpurnia’s fearful attempts to detain him and stoically concluding that “Death, a necessary end, / Will come when it will come.” Caesar’s refusal to be deterred by “feminine” fears, instead accepting the likelihood of his death with equanimity, does lead to his death. This ultimately suggests that he’s resolute and honorable when it counts most—shrinking, perhaps, in the face of an unpredictable crowd, but prepared to face death even when he could make excuses and avoid it. This supports the argument that manhood isn’t reducible to isolated episodes, but is proven by the way a person endures to the end.

Something similar is demonstrated by the “masculine” character of Portia. In Act 2, Portia establishes the case for her trustworthiness on the claim that she’s an atypical woman: “I grant I am a woman, but withal / A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife. / I grant I am a woman, but withal / A woman well-reputed, Cato’s daughter. / Think you I am no stronger than my sex, / Being so fathered and so husbanded?” In other words, Portia’s high-regarded reputation among exceptional men separate her from the “weakness” that’s to be expected of other women, and thus she can be entrusted with the matters of state that trouble Brutus. Not only that, but Portia wounds herself in the thigh to demonstrate that, like a man, she’s strong enough to stoically endure suffering and is therefore worthy of Brutus’s confidence. Later, Brutus is grieved when he learns that Portia, ashamed of his possible failure at war, has swallowed hot coals to commit suicide. Portia leaves an impression of a woman struggling to garner respect in a world governed by inexorable masculine norms. In the end, there’s no enduring place for her in such a world, and she follows those norms to an exaggerated conclusion by choosing the most painful possible death. Ultimately, then, Portia proves her “manhood” through the only means available to her—pursuing suffering all the way to death.

Like Caesar, Brutus is doubted throughout the play, and is presented as an ambiguous character as far as manliness and honor go. During Antony’s funeral speech for Caesar, Antony deploys the refrain “Brutus is an honorable man” ironically in order to cast doubt on Brutus’s allegedly honorable intentions, which the masses had been praising moments before. Antony’s emotionally-laden speech ends up shifting the people’s allegiance from Brutus to himself, and sends Brutus and the conspirators into exile from Rome. And yet, at the end of the play, Antony celebrates Brutus’s masculinity even after the latter’s death, concluding that of all the conspirators, only Brutus’s intentions were noble. Because of his rejection of envy and consistent action according to honest principle, the world can look upon Brutus in death and say, “This was a man.” This suggests that, despite the shifting loyalties of the masses and changing political expediencies, Brutus is really proven to be “an honorable man” by the way he follows his principles in the long run, even unto death.

In some ways, Shakespeare avoids an overly rigid code of manliness in Julius Caesar. No single character exemplifies masculinity in an unvarying, wooden manner, and even women can embody it. On the other hand, manhood and honor can only finally be assessed upon one’s death, meaning that, to a certain extent, it’s an unattainable ideal in life—one that is constantly sought after and subject to the assessments of one’s peers.