Julius Caesar Research Paper

Good morning, people! I came up here today to talk about something that might make you bored a little bit. I believe everyone in this room has read one of Shakespeare’s plays more than once in their life. I would like you to recall the first time you read his writing. What was your first impression? Good? Sad? Or were you overwhelmed with great agony from deep inside your heart? Did you hate yourself, not understanding a single word on a page? I don’t wanna sound like an I-know-everything person, but believe me. When I read the first page of Macbeth, I just knew it from instinct -- this is not my type of book. The words were too lofty, his syntax was overly complicated, and his characters would just suddenly speak out their thoughts. I mean,
who would do that in real life? However, there’s something in Shakespeare’s writing that reserves its place on top of many high school reading lists. There’s something special that made me actually finish his plays when I could have just skimmed through SparkNotes. And today, I want to share what that is.
To begin with, Shakespeare’s writings are not Once-upon-a-time-there-lived-blah blah kinds of things.
Well, sure. Most of his writings are from a long time ago. None of them talk about iPhones or facebook. Macbeth is a king who lived in Middle Ages. Julius Caesar? Ancient Rome. Romeo and Juliet, a story of the time when people would just start fighting on the street, killing each other. However, interestingly, we encounter these characters every day in our life. In Julius Caesar, Caesar is afraid people might think he is not masculine and weak. Just like him, we care a lot about how other people see us and sometimes make decision opposing to what we really want because of others. Shakespeare makes a thorough observation of human nature that applies the same from ancient Romans to modern day people. His observations are so sharp that it penetrates hippocratic masks and reveal emotions we hide. They make us look back what we really feel, what we really think, and what we really want. By following the characters, we can encounter vulnerable, somewhat uncomfortable, but undeniable portraits of
ourselves.
To add on, Shakespeare’s plays keep us awake and teach us how to view the world critically.
Long story short, they protect us from being deceived by those people up there: politicians and mass media. Take a careful look around you. Let’s be honest. A lot of times, our thoughts are not what we really think. Five-second-Youtube ads sneak into our brains and skillfully manipulate our thoughts. Words falling out of politicians’ mouth quietly float into our hearts, speeding up the heartbeat. And Shakespeare knew that exactly 400 years ago. Let’s take a look at a scene in Julius Caesar. After Caesar was murdered by the conspirators, Antony, a close friend of Caesar, delivers a speech in Caesar’s funeral. He pretends to be an honest man, sincerely mourning the death of his close friend Caesar, who was slashed by those “honorable men.” Rather than reading out Caesar’s will directly, he patiently waits until the crowd shouts out with their own mouths, “Please, please, please read us the will!” He turns the crowd into angry herds of animals in less than 10 minutes. What Antony does is no different from what we see on TV today. Impractical promises made every election. Words that control our emotion and lead us into making illogical decisions. Can't believe me? Look who’s the president of America now! That’s why by reading and analyzing Shakespeare plays, we gain the skill of seeing things critically, not taking it as it is on the surface. Recognizing who’s telling the truth and who’s
not, who’s using invisible tools to shape us as one wants and who’s working for one's own good not the good of society.
I would like to wrap up my speech by emphasizing how important high school is in our lives. High school is not the place where we only learn calculus or world history. It’s way more than that. Romantic relationships. Deep thoughts and worries about the future. Passionate peer conversations on all kinds of things. High school is the only time in our lives when we are grown enough to view the world like adults, but still young enough to make mistakes. High school is like a vaccine we get before stepping out to the tough world. We learn to acknowledge our emotions, not denying or hiding them. We learn to protect ourselves from being deceived by manipulative people, mass media, and those honorable men. Why delete Shakespeare from the reading lists when his writings are great teachers that achieve both goals? Don’t stop yourself from reading them just because they are too hard. If you don’t understand it on your first try, read it again. There’s no right or wrong in Shakespeare. Don’t hesitate to try different approaches. Don’t hesitate to speak up in class. Bring Shakespeare to that place deep inside your heart where you keep all your love, hate, sadness, happiness, hope, frustration and make it one of them. After that, I promise you that you will find yourself one step above what you were before reading it. Thank you.