Ceaser
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Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Fate versus Free Will
Julius Caesar raises many questions about the force of fate in life versus the capacity for free will. Cassius refuses to accept Caesar's rising power and deems a belief in fate to be nothing more than a form of passivity or cowardice. He says to Brutus: "Men at sometime were masters of their fates. / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings" (I.ii.140142). Cassius urges a return to a more noble, self-possessed attitude toward life, blaming his and Brutus's submissive stance not on a predestined plan but on their failure to assert themselves.
Ultimately, the play seems to support a philosophy in which fate and freedom maintain a delicate coexistence. Thus Caesar declares: "It seems to me most strange that men should fear, / Seeing that death, a necessary end, / Will come when it will come" (II...