Julius Caesar

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To continue on with Shakespeare plays with ghosts in it, I want to move on to Julius Caesar. Though the play is named after him, Caesar is not a main character. This play focuses more on Caesar’s best friend and also one of his murderers, Brutus. Reading this, I’ve coming to a conclusion that killing a close friend just leads to bad things in the end. No good ever comes out of it especially if Shakespeare is involved.
Caesar dies in the middle of the play but we see Caesar a couple more times in the last half as a ghost. He brings bad news and is only seen by Brutus, the last person who killed him.

BRUTUS
It was well done; and thou shalt sleep again;
I will not hold thee long: if I do live,
I will be good to thee.

Music, and a song

This is a sleepy tune. O murderous slumber,
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee:
If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument;
I'll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night.
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn'd down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

Enter the Ghost of CAESAR

How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou any thing?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.

GHOST
Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

BRUTUS
Why comest thou?

GHOST
To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

BRUTUS
Well; then I shall see thee again?

GHOST
Ay, at Philippi.

BRUTUS
Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then.

Exit Ghost

Now I have taken heart thou vanishest:
Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.
Boy, Lucius! Varro! Claudius! Sirs, awake! Claudius! (Act 4, Scene 3, 264- 289)

Caesar’s ghost once again follows the basics of ghost in the Renaissance time period. He is someone who recently just died and he comes to bare bad news. Whether or not Caesar’s ghost is a demon or not, it cannot really be determined but my guts tell me he is a good ghost as he is restless and even though does not say, I believe Caesar’s ghost is in Purgatory. My reasoning for this is that he is restless and is only delivering a message to Brutus. He doesn’t speak of anything else but how Brutus will meet him at Philippi.
Brutus, like any sane person, goes a little crazy after this. He isn’t too sure if he is dreaming so he wakes up the rest to see if they saw anything or said anything in their sleep. They did not which gives more evidence that whatever Brutus saw could possibly be a ghost. If it was his conscious, why would his conscious tell him that he will meet Caesar again at Philippi.
Brutus is also not in the right state of mind. He just got in an argument with Cassius. Though they made up, one can tell that things are not the same. Brutus also discovers that his wife has killed herself by swallowing fire. Depression most likely has sunk into Brutus leaving him open to ghosts.
Caesar’s ghost appears once again but this time the audience does not see the ghost. We only know that Caesar’s ghost appeared on the battlefield was because Brutus claimed that he saw him.

BRUTUS
Why, this, Volumnius:
The ghost of Caesar hath appear'd to me
Two several times by night; at Sardis once,
And, this last night, here in Philippi fields:
I know my hour is come. (Act 5, Scene 5, 15-18)

Brutus is accepting death and what he did to Caesar was wrong so he ends up killing himself. This here just shows me that Brutus was definitely not in the right mind and maybe the ghost of Caesar was made up by his conscious. Killing himself, as I grew up learning, automatically puts him in hell. Yes, he was going to hell after killing Caesar but from what I was beginning to understand, Brutus was in a way repenting and regretting Caesar’s death even though the reason to kill Caesar was for Caesar’s benefit. I feel bad for Brutus as he believed what he did was right but in the end, he realized he was wrong and he felt like the only way to end things is that he would kill himself. The whole play of Julius Caesar confused me with everyone killing themselves.
Caesar’s ghost doesn’t have a huge role like Banquo’s ghost and Hamlet’s ghost. I wouldn’t say that it was a catalyst but I would say that it supports how ghosts appear to those who are melancholic. The ghosts usually ended up being seen by the main character and the ghost usually is a recent murdered victim and is close to the main character. I’m starting to feel bad for all the Shakespearean characters who are visited by ghosts as none of them lives.

Shakespeare, William, Harold Bloom, and Burton Raffel. Julius Caesar. New York: Yale UP, 2006.