Betrayal In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Hamlet, And Julius Caesar

1874 words - 8 pages

"Et tu – Brute?" “Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard,Some do it with a bitter look,Some with a flattering word,The coward does it with a kiss,The brave man with a sword,” by Oscar Wilde. In the tragedies of Shakespeare we encounter betrayal upon his plays and how it leads to catastrophic consequences. In this case Macbeth, hamlet and Julius Caesar are no exceptions. In the Shakespearean tragedies Macbeth Hamlet, and Julius Caesar betrayal will lead to the downfall of a tragic hero.
To illustrate, macbeth makes some drastic decisions that jeopardizes the whole play. At the start of the play he is a loyal and a honorable man. This character of his leads victory to the battle against the norwegians and scotland triumphs from his bravery. He is praised from his act of duty and is shown when the kings asks how the battle was won the captain reports to him , “For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name-/Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, /Which smoked with bloody execution.”(I.ii.16-18). Therefore without his loyalty and braveness to his country he would of lost the battle against the norwegians. Ross the scottish nobleman agrees
Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold.
Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The Thane Cawdor; began a dismal conflict
Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapped in proof, Confronted him with self-comparisons
Point against pint, rebellious arm ‘gainst arm
Curbing his lavish spirit and to conclude,
The victory fell on us. (I.iii.49-58)

Moving on, Hamlet is a whole different world from macbeth. Hamlet is feeling a little under the weather. From the start of the play his father had recently died and apparently his mother marries just two months later. Awkward,huh! Although Hamlet seems more miserable than macbeth,as the witches refer to Banquo he is ‘lesser than Macbeth but greater/Not so happy, yet much happier/Thou shall begets kings, thou be none."(I.iii.66-69) Could this mean that the witches knew macbeth was going to do the deed or was it just a manipulation technique since macbeth wants to know more from their prophecies
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
By Sinel’s death I know I am thane of Glamis.
But how of Cawdor? The thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman, and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence, or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting. Speak, I charge you.(I.iii.71-79)

Moreover, now on julius caesar he was an important figure in the history of rome. Julius Caesar helped bring about the end roman republic, for four hundred and fifty years rome had not been ruled by a single person. He was a successful general who conquered territories outside of rome and helped turned rome into a large empire. He became such a powerful figure that after defeating his political rivals he took in the role of a...

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