Characterization in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Help Students Identify with Characters to Understand Shakespeare
Mar 19, 2009
With all of the beautiful language and enchanting imagery he creates, Shakespeare is still long and laborious for high school students. Often, teens rely on internet summaries and class discussions just to follow his complex story lines and avoid the archaic language. This article shares ways to help students delve into the actual text.
Administer Student Questionnaire
Before you introduce Julius Caesar, administer to your students a personality test of sorts to determine with which character in the play they would most closely identify. Questions in this test can include:
- Do you see yourself as a leader or a follower?
- Do you like persuading people to see things from your point of view?
- Would you turn against your best friend if you strongly felt it was for the good of your country?
- If you were unanimously elected class president, would you take the position even if it wasn’t your personal aspiration?
- Have you ever let someone close to you convince you to do something wrong?
Assign Students a Character
Collect and sort student responses into those who share similar answers on their questionnaire. Then, assign each grouping of students a different major character in the play. Some groups may have two students while other groups may have four or five. For the purposes of this assignment, try to keep the character groups within the range of two to four students. Here is a list of possible characters:
- Caesar
- Brutus
- Cassius
- Antony
- Casca
- Decius
- Octavius
- Portia
- Calphurnia
Be the Character
Once students have been assigned a character, you can introduce the general plot of the play and instruct students to carefully follow their character throughout the course of the play. Encourage them to think like the character and always try to empathize with him or her by seeing situations from his or her point of view as much as possible.
Here are some questions they should consider while following their characters. Many of these will not be directly answered within the play, so encourage students to hypothesize and take an educated guess based on the character’s actions and dialogue.
- What is this character’s dreams, aspirations and goals?
- What is the primary motive behind this character’s actions? (greed, love, jealously, passion, self-interest, sense of duty)
- How might this character be persuaded to change their opinions?
- How does the character view himself or herself?
- How do other characters view this character?
- Does this character change throughout the play?
- Do you admire, despise, or fear this character?
Consider Dramatic Characterization
A key question about characterization revolves around whether a character changes throughout the course of the play. Teach students the difference between static and dynamic characters and ask them to identify specific examples of each.
Static Character
This is a character who essentially does not change throughout the play. Caesar is an example of a static character. This is illustrated in the monologue he gives before his death in Act 3 when he says, “But I am constant as the Northern Star,/Of whose true fixed and resting quality/There is no fellow in the firmament” (lines 66-68).
Dynamic Character
This is a character who changes throughout the play. Brutus and Mark Antony are both examples of dynamic characters. Students who are studying dynamic characters should pay careful attention to the turning points where their characters begin to change.
By identifying with one specific character while studying Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, students will gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of the text. The key is to match students with appropriate characters so that they can instantly share a bond with them. These students can represent their chosen characters in dramatic class readings and also be called upon during discussion to defend or explain their characters’ actions.
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