Loyalty in Shakespeare, Term Paper Example

William Shakespeare was a master of ambiguous characters. Shakespeare created characters that were heroes in one act and then anti-heroes in the next act. This allowed his characters to be believable. One-dimensional characters are only permitted one feeling about a situation; however, Shakespeare allowed his characters to run the gambit of feelings on one situation. This is seen in “Hamlet,” in the main character Hamlet, Antony in “Antony and Cleopatra,” and in “Julius Caesar,” with one of the main characters Brutus. Brutus plays the part of Julius’s good friend. Hamlet plays the part of the loyal son. Antony plays the part of both ruler and lover. Each characters face conflicts of morality, and their shifting loyalty; both attributes shift during the course of the play that makes for dramatic monologues and actions. This essay will break down the components of loyalty and morality for each character (Hamlet, Brutus, and Antony) throughout each act turn. This essay will argue that these characters change in the course of the play from whom they were at the beginning compared to whom they end up being at the end of the drama.

Julius Caesar/Brutus

Brutus is one of Caesar’s good friends at the start of the play, “Julius Caesar,” but before the end of the play he is one of the many who stab Caesar in the Senate. Brutus changes his character, questions his morality and shifts his loyalty from where it is in Act I to where it is in Act V. Brutus says of Caesar in Act II “He would be crowned/How that might change his nature, there’s the question” (II.i.12-13) in referencing the fear Brutus has of Caesar becoming dictator of Rome. Brutus’s loyalty is to Rome and he struggles with this loyalty because Caesar represents Rome. Harold Bloom describes Brutus as a “shallow idealist” (15-16) and says that “Brutus uniformly speaks of Caesar with respect, almost indeed of admiration. It is his ambition, not his greatness, that Brutus resents…” (Bloom 16). Thus, although Brutus is loyal to Caesar his loyalty is trumped by his jealousy. It is Brutus’s jealousy that is his downfall; at least in so far as Brutus believes Caesar will corrupt the one thing that Brutus admires and respects in the world: Rome.

Brutus thinks of Caesar as his ruler until Cassius puts it in Brutus’s head that Caesar is out to become dictator of Rome. Once Brutus accepts this lie he thinks of Caesar in a different light and his loyalty shifts from all-encompassing follower to saying “and therefore think him [Caesar] as a serpent’s egg/which, comma, hatched, would as his kind grow/mischevious/and kill him in the shell” (II.i.32-35); thus, Brutus seeks to end Caesar before his power comes to fruition, however, since Caesar is emperor of Rome, the act that Brutus suggests is treason and therefore Brutus is acting against the laws of the one thing he feels he stands for: Rome.

Bloom defines Brutus’s character as “…full of beauty and sweetness…upright, gentle, and pure…a man adorned with all the virtues which, in public and private, at home and in the circle of friends, win respect and charm the heart” (Bloom 23-24). This is said of Brutus at the beginning of the play. In the middle of the play Bloom says of Brutus, “…his duty to be meddling with things that he does not understand” (Bloom 24), creates Brutus’s two-dimensionality. Brutus then comes full circle by deceiving Caesar, and killing him, only to die by the hands of the Roman mob at the end of the drama. Brutus’s shift in character because of his shift in morality changes him completely to the reader. To Brutus, he still believes he’s doing the right thing by even terming he and his fellow conspirators as “sacrificers, but not butchers” (II.i.173). As Soellner states, “Brutus’s lack of flexibility and his idealistic rigidity are fundamental flaws of his character and motivating themes of the action” (170). Brutus is a tragic hero because his belief ends him, “He confides in the goodness of his cause, not considering that the better the cause, the worse its chance with bad men” (Bloom 26). Although Brutus sees himself as a moral character, he seeks to find nobility in his evil action (killing Caesar) but at the end of the drama is unable to do so (Ribner 62) and thus he’s a tragic hero with full knowledge at the end of the drama of his failing moral ambitions.

Hamlet

Similar to Brutus, Hamlet tries to consider his moral obligation and his loyalty to his father. Hamlet’s moral obligation is to catch a murderer but he also has a higher order of rationality when considering how the kingdom will fall apart with a king (Claudius, his uncle). When the kingdom discovers that Claudius killed Hamlet’s father, the king, the kingdom would be devastated. Hamlet, however, does not spend a lot of time over this seemingly minor point (in his mind) and instead decides that the moral and loyal obligation he has it to first find out if his father’s ghost is speaking the truth in stating that Claudius was his killer.

The next step of Hamlet’s shifting concerns over loyalty is rather metaphysical. Hamlet desires to kill Claudius once he discovers his uncle did in fact murder the king, but when opportunity presents itself to Hamlet, Hamlet cannot muster the necessary will power to kill Claudius because Claudius is praying, “Now might I do it pat, now he is praying; / And now I’ll do’t” (III.iii.73-4). The reason that Hamlet cannot kill Claudius while he prays is because Hamlet feels that if he murders Claudius while he prays, Claudius will have grace on his side and therefore not suffer for his sins in purgatory like Hamlet’s father is suffering. The point of killing Claudius for Hamlet shifts from one of moral and loyal obligation into one of vengeance. While Brutus sought to kill Caesar out of a desire (albeit a partisan desire) to keep Rome free of dictators, Hamlet seeks to kill Claudius for vendetta reasons. This bleeds the line between loyalty and anger. If Hamlet is committing crime out of a vendetta and not out of justice, he becomes an anti-hero.

Hamlet is stating that he will indeed act against his and his father’s transgressors (Claudius and whomever stands beside Claudius). Thus, Hamlet’s loyalty at the beginning of the play, to Claudius, his uncle and new king, shifts a complete 180 and he becomes Claudius’s downfall at the end of the play. Hamlet becomes Claudius’s downfall not because of loyalty (although this emotion certainly helped get Hamlet far along in the plot) but because of hate and vengeance. While Brutus kept a pure heart all the through “Julius Caesar,” because his loyalty didn’t shift from being tied to doing good for Rome, Hamlet’s loyalty shifts to wrecking his kingdom through selfish acts of vengeance that he says are for his father but may ultimately be for himself and proving himself.

Antony and Cleopatra/Antony

Antony’s loyalties in, “Antony and Cleopatra” are divided. They are divided in love and in politics. While Antony marries Caesar’s sister, Octavia in order to keep peace in Rome, this severs Antony’s loyalty to his lover, Cleopatra. Antony’s move in marrying Octavia is a moral one as it brings about a more peaceful Rome, it is also a turbulent one as it devastates his relationship not only with Cleopatra but also with his political ties in that country. Thus, Antony’s morality and his loyalty are ends with each other.

Antony’s loyalty is a convoluted element in the play. Antony has conflicting loyalties to Rome, Caesar, Octavia, Egypt, and Cleopatra. Antony compares Cleopatra’s waning loyalty to him to the troops that abandoned him for Caesar. While Antony is trying to forge a relationship with Caesar (by marrying Octavia) he is also plotting Rome’s takeover with Cleopatra. Thus, Antony’s loyalties are at odds with each other and when a character has this type of dysfunction, they create their own demise.

Antony’s loyalty to Cleopatra is his impetus to suicide. When Antony finds out that Cleopatra is dead (her ruse) he kills himself because his loyalty to her is that strong. Antony allows his loyalty for love end him. If Antony had given heed to more moral choices such as loyalty to self (in self-preservation) or loyalty to Rome (instead of Cleopatra) he would not have had a tragic ending. While Hamlet’s loyalty turned to vengeance and Brutus’s loyalty turned to sabotage, Antony’s loyalty turned to suicide.

Antony’s loyalty to Cleopatra begets his loyalty to Rome to come under questioning. His love affair undermines his loyalty to Rome and thus, loyalty becomes Antony’s demise just as loyalty to Rome beget Brutus’s demise (at least Brutus’s version of Rome). In fact, Antony abandons Rome for Cleopatra: not only Rome, but also his friends, family, and his wife. Antony finds himself at odds with his past and traditions and his present with a strange and selfish queen. Antony is an interesting character because of this Eastern (Egyptian) and Western (Roman) dichotomy. He at once wants to prove himself as a ruler, but ultimately succumbs to his love of Cleopatra. In order to be with Cleopatra however, he must break his ties with his old life and that means break his loyalties with Rome and everything that Rome stands for.

Antony’s suicide at the end of the play happens not just because he believes that Cleopatra has killed herself and he cannot fathom a world without her, but also because he now must face his choices and his shifted loyalty. Antony betrayed Rome, and in that betrayal he feels guilty:

Oh, sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:

Fortune and Antony part here; even here

Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts

That spanieled me at heels, to whom I gave

Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets

On blossoming Caesar, and this pine is barked

That over topped them all (IV.xiii.18–24)

Here, Antony mentions his guilt because he didn’t act like a ruler should act, and he didn’t act in a noble way. The twist of the play is that while Antony shows complete dedication and loyalty to Cleopatra, she does not show the same in kind. Cleopatra’s loyalty is to herself. Antony’s disloyalty to country and ultimately to self, are the real reason he commits suicide. Cleopatra was just his excuse.

Conclusion

Each of Shakespeare’s characters face their limits with their ideal of loyalty. Brutus faced his loyalty limit when he kills Caesar and says that he kills his emperor because he fears Caesar will become a dictator. Brutus’s actions are like putting the cart before the horse as it were because Brutus kills Caesar before Caesar has a chance of even committing any of the atrocities that Brutus is afraid he’ll commit. Brutus’s loyalties change throughout the course of the play as he figures that his main loyalty is to Rome and if Caesar is standing in the way of Rome, then Brutus’s has a reason to kill him justly. In the end, however, this justification doesn’t hold any water and Brutus regrets his actions and terms them as disloyal acts. Hamlet’s loyalty is shaken throughout the play as well. Hamlet feels that he owes his father because he isn’t just his father but his king. Hamlet must decide if it’s the loyal or moral thing to kill Claudius. Hamlet uses loyalty as a guise for vengeance however and kills Claudius so that Claudius has to pay for his since in purgatory. Antony’s loyalty is split in too many directions and the readers are meant to believe that Antony’s chief loyalty is to love, aka Cleopatra. In Antony’s suicide speech, however, the readers are given a different perspective of Antony and it’s revealed that Antony regrets his decisions in following Cleopatra instead of being a noble leader. Antony commits suicide out of regret and shame for not having been loyal to himself and his sublime notions of Rome and all that Rome symbolizes to him (e.g. identity, loyalty, leadership, etc.). Each character shows loyalty at the beginning of the play but by the end of the play their original loyalties are lost to the shuffle of the drama. Their changing characters and views of loyalty are what the drive the play and are what can define them as tragic heroes or even as anti-heroes.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. New York City: Riverhead Books, 2005. Print.

Ribner, Irving. Patterns in Shakespearian Tragedy. London: Methuen & Co., 2013. Web.

Soellner, Rolf. Shakespeare’s Patterns of Self-Knowledge. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Print.

Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Prentice Hall Literature. Ed. Unknown. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2012. 893-1000.