As the leader of the country Julius Caesar would feel directly linked to God, so he must feel that as a result to avoid any evil portents he must make a sacrifice. Caesar is at his house and there is another storm, his reactions to the storm were actually quite different then to Casca, he asks sacrifices to be made and omens to be read all day. In Act two Scene two, we see one of the main dreams of the play. It leaves the audience with two options either God is unhappy with the conspirators or with Caesar.
This shows the audience that Cassius is smart enough to ‘construe things after his fashion’. Cassius’s reactions to the storm are really noticed in the scene instead he is more focused on the plot to get rid of Julius Caesar.
Casca says a man should beware of the anger of the gods, but Cassisus, who is speaking to him in the scene, answers that there are more monstrous things than these portents, which are only symptoms of the evil state of affairs in Rome. It is quite common to see a ‘tough character’ become so nervous, talkative and excitable as Casca does in circumstances of danger because Shakespeare might have known that men were like that in his time. Shakes like a thing unfirm? ’ this is a line from the play showing casca reactions. But in this scene after the storm he changes to such a large extent that he draws his sword out. The reactions of the characters were expressed a lot at the start of the play, especially Casca who is just introduced in the play as a ‘plain blunt man’. As in the Elizabethan period a storm was to predict a bad forthcoming, and so Shakespeare shows at the start of the scene. In Act one scene three there is a portent, the thunder begins to rumble and grows in volume. So by linking Julius Caesar with other plays he has created a wide range of themes, power, greed and deception. Although it is so early on in the play Shakespeare is already creating an impact on Caesar’s character as being self minded and a selfish emperor, also in other plays like ‘Macbeth’, there is a selfish king called Macbeth who murders Duncan to take power based on magical predictions by the three witches. In Elizabethan times this would look bad to them because they knew if anyone ignored the significant heaven there would be trouble.Ĭaesar shows a great deal of arrogance towards he soothsayer by completely ignoring the soothsayer, this shows when he uses phrases like ‘ he is a dreamer, let us leave him ’. This would lead to the audience thinking that something bad was going to happen in the middle of March. In this case, the soothsayer tells Caesar to ‘ beware the ides of March ’ this is an example of a bad omen, which predicts a bad outcome on the 15 th March. A soothsayer can be described as a prophet-like being that has special abilities to see what troubles or fortunes are forthcoming. Shakespeare starts of relatively early on in the play where in Act one, scene two a soothsayer approaches Julius Caesar.
The uses of these techniques allow Shakespeare to create dramatic tension in the play, as shown in acts 1-3, before his death. Also many Elizabethans were superstitious about things, which explains Shakespeare’s use of predictions and omens in the play. Similar to the characters in ‘Julius Caesar’ the Elizabethans would see storms as a warning to some sort of disaster or calamity to be visited upon men, pagan or Christian, by God. Shakespeare lived the Elizabethan period therefore like many Elizabethans he would have had the conception of the divine order of the universe being mystical. Particularly in ‘Julius Caesar’ Shakespeare uses disruptions as portents, omens and predictions to give us a sense of approach of terrible events. Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays because in it he deals powerfully and excitingly with the themes of power and conscience. How do portents, omens and dreams add to the dramatic tension before Julius Caesar’s murder, in ‘Julius Caesar’?
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