Last week marked the 453^rd anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, and while all around the world this event was marked with celebrations, it is unlikely at all that many people in

Guyana, even teachers and other literary people, knew that it was the date of the birth of one of the greatest writers who ever lived.

It is a pity, because events that highlight Shakespeare’s plays and poems in the week of his birth would have been extremely beneficial not only to the populace as a whole, but especially so to the students who will be writing the CSEC Literature exam in a few days, where they will have to answer questions on Shakespeare’s work, specifically Julius Caesar. This final article in the Julius Caesar series that I have been writing over the past weeks will focus on the important themes of manipulation and persuasion, going hand in hand with the other themes of politics, power, and pretense, that emerge as some of the most important in this particular play.

Naturally, the first instance of manipulation that comes to mind is the extended dialogue in the beginning when Cassius plants the seed of the conspiracy to murder Caesar in Brutus’ mind, but there are other kinds of manipulations to be found in the play. There is Anthony’s persuasion of the Plebians that stands as another noteworthy example. However, two of the most important scenes of persuasion in the play involve the two women: Calpurnia and Portia, who are two important characters whose purpose in the play often become lost in the masculine-packed Julius Caesar.

The women in the play have interesting roles, particularly when it comes to the idea of persuasion. Calpurnia, Caesar’s superstitious wife, has a terrifying (and symbolic) dream of Caesar bleeding, with all of Rome smiling and washing their hands in his blood, and she is convinced that he should not go out of the house on the day the Soothsayers warned him about. Calpurnia knowing her husband’s confidence and high sense of self, initially persuades him to not go out of the house by appealing to the side of him that does not wish to be painted as being weak or scared. Note when she says, “Do not go forth today. / Call it my fear / that keeps you in the house, and not your own.” This is a subtle, but strong, persuasive technique Calpurnia uses, shifting the appearance of fear and weakness over herself instead of Caesar. However, the ruse does not work and Caesar is eventually lured out of the house by Decius, who himself is also a great manipulator in the play.

Similarly, Portia, Brutus’ wife, uses her skills of persuasion on her husband and, like Calpurnia, she also fails to get what she wants. Portia is very much aware that something troubles her husband (the plot to kill Caesar) and she tries to get him to tell her what is affecting him so, all to no avail. Note when she uses her beauty and her status as his wife to inveigle the truth out of him: “And upon my knees / I charm you, by my once commended beauty, / By all your vows of love and that great vow…” Note also when that fails and she uses her prominence, her lineage, her status, to persuade him to tell her the truth: “I grant I am a woman, but withal / A woman that lord Brutus took to wife. / I grant I am a woman, but withal a woman well reputed, Cato’s daughter.” In the end, none of her techniques of persuasion work and she is once more turned away.

Perhaps, the way Shakespeare allows the persuasions of the women (well-intentioned and likely to have the changed the course of events were they adhered to) to fail when compared to the way the manipulations of the  men succeed can be read as a comment on the patriarchal nature of politics and the way women’s views and opinions are often disregarded even when they are right.