Read the extract from 'Julius Caesar' Act 5, Scene 1, given below and answer the questions that follow: Cassius: Then, if we lose this battle, You are contented to be led in triumph Through the streets of Rome? Brutus: No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman, That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome; He bears too great a mind. But this same day Must end that work the ides of March begun; And whether we shall meet again I know not. Therefore our everlasting farewell take: Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius. If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then, this parting was well made.
How does Brutus die? How does his manner of dying contradict the philosophy by which he had lived his life?
Topic: Act 5 Scene 5 — Brutus's death
Answer
Defeated at Philippi and unwilling to be taken alive, Brutus asks several friends in turn to hold his sword; all refuse, until Strato consents and holds it while Brutus runs upon it, saying that Caesar may now be still — he killed himself with half the will with which he killed Caesar.
It contradicts his philosophy because Brutus was a Stoic. Earlier in the play he had condemned suicide as "cowardly and vile", telling Cassius he thought it wrong to shorten one’s life for fear of what might come. In taking his own life he does the very thing his creed forbade.
Two parts, so make the contradiction explicit rather than implied: name the Stoic principle, quote or paraphrase his earlier condemnation of Cato’s suicide, then set his own death against it. A concluding line on why he does it — he prefers death to the shame of being led through Rome — shows you understand the character rather than merely the plot.