Choose the correct answers to the questions from the given options. (Do not copy the questions, write ONLY the correct answers.)
When Brutus says, 'ambition's debt is paid', he means that __________.
Topic: Act 3 Scene 1 — Brutus justifies the murder
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Pick an option and check your answer. The full worked answer is below either way.
Answer
(a) Caesar's greed for power and possession had resulted in his death.
Read the metaphor closely: ambition is treated as a debt, and death is the payment. Brutus is arguing that Caesar owed a price for his ambition and has now paid it in full — his standard defence that the killing was justice, not murder. Note that the drachmas in option (b) belong to Antony’s later reading of the will, a favourite trap in this paper: examiners mix details from different scenes.
Caesar's greed for power and possession had resulted in his death.
Caesar's greed for power and possession had resulted in his death.