The Making Of The Self:Characterization In Julius Caesar

The remarkable depiction of inner conflicts as well as motivations of the characters has won Julius Caesar a reputation as the prelude to Shakespeare’s later great tragedies.Yet,as the titular hero is killed right in the middle of the dramatic action and major characters exhibit inconsistent or even contradictory behavior,the play has spawned widespread critical disagreements over its characters and Shakespeare’s political position.This tradition of critical disputes calls into question a fixed criterion for judgment over characters.Based on Stephen Greenblatt’s conceptualization of "Renaissance self-fashioning," this thesis,through an analysis of the characters’ modes of and strategies for self-fashioning,casts doubt on the notion of an essential,definite personality,and further argues that,by dramatizing those Roman figures’ self-fashioning efforts,Shakespeare investigates the making of the self and proposes another way for comprehension of human existence.On the one hand,"self-fashioning" refers to a Renaissance cultural paradigm in which the individual is urged to voluntarily form one’s own identity within the ideologico-discursive framework.On the other hand,it designates the process wherein the self is formed through voluntary actions and interaction with others.In this perception,both major and minor characters in this play display a keen self-consciousness and a linguistic capacity for constructing identities.They have recourse to narrativity,role-playing and persuasion for self-formation.Meanwhile,self-fashioning is a process where opposing social forces fight to dominate.The inconstancies and ruptures appearing in characters can be seen as the result of contention between the discourse in authority and the discourse its alien Other.The main body of the thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One examines the deliberate fashioning of one’s self.Characters in Julius Caesar employ idiosyncratic style of speech and strategy of role-playing in the voluntary making of identity.In Chapter Two,the influence of social forces in self-fashioning is examined.As is implied by the alchemy imagery,self-fashioning is such a mutually constitutive process that man within social context must respond to an audience when fashioning self.The self of a character is thus constituted through interaction with others in modes of linguistic manipulation,such as persuasion and narration.Chapter Three anatomizes the self that is produced from the synergy of personal will and social forces.The synergy as conflicting social discourses internalized in the individual,makes the self a site of contention between the authority and the Other.The characters hence have achieved through self-fashioning an identity that contains within itself self-effacement,appearing ambiguous and contradictory.