“ O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers” Act three, scene one, line 254. This line, said by Antony, shows his conflict with himself, and with the conspirators, because he feels he is too gentle with Caesar’s killers, and yet he does look at them as butchers and murderers. After Caesar’s death, Antony fights to avenge Caesar’s death, but he also wants Caesars forgiveness. Antony wants the killer’s of his dear friend to regret what they did, and he wants them dead. To get this he is motivated by his need of revenge, and also his need for forgiveness.
Antony’s main motivator is revenge. He needs to get revenge against the conspirators, because they killed Caesar, who was very important to Antony. This motivator makes Antony act violent and angry, which you can see when Antony is with Caesars body, after Brutus and the other conspirators left him there. He says “woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!” this shows that he is hoping the conspirators regret what they did, and he pities them, which is one of the reasons why he wants revenge. In that quote, you don’t really see how violent he gets, however, right after that he says “A curse will light upon the limbs of men; Domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all parts of Italy; blood and destruction shall be so in use, and dreadful objects so familiar…” and he then goes on to talk more about how Italy will be a place filled with death and destruction, and people will be so used to this kind of life, because Caesar’s spirit will come and turn Italy into a battle field, where mother’s will smile when they see their children cut up, and the dead will be groaning for burial. Antony obviously is angry, and he has death and blood on his mind, which he is determined to get. Both these quotes come from Act three, scene one, page 124, lines 228 and 262- 266.
The second motivator for Antony is that he wants forgiveness from Caesar, which ties in with the revenge, because he wants to prove to Caesar that he is not standing back and watching his friend get killed without doing something after. Antony was always very loyal to Caesar, and all throughout the story, he followed him, and did exactly as he was asked. Once Caesar died, Antony felt as though he had betrayed him by being weak against the conspirators, but he really wasn’t like this, he wanted to prove to Caesar that he loved him. Also, he wanted Caesar to see that he still is loyal, and always will be. In Act three, scene two, Antony is speaking at Caesars funeral, where he must not blame the conspirators, yet he does find a way to get the people on his side. He tells the crowd that he thinks Caesar was not ambitious, but because Brutus said he was, it must be right because Brutus is an honorable man. By doing this, he got the crowd thinking about who was really correct. After saying all this though, he said “Bear with me, my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me”. This shows that Antony has the emotions that the conspirators don’t show. He is clearly upset about the death of Caesar, and everyone can see that, so the death becomes more real to the people. Another time that Antony shows his love for Caesar is again, during his soliloquy in Act three, scene 1. He says “thou art the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times.”
This is when Antony is asking for Caesars forgiveness, and he is telling him that he was the greatest man that ever lived, which shows that he really did love Caesar more than anyone else. It was this love for Caesar that motivated him to do something about the conspirators.
After Caesar’s death, Antony is determined to get revenge, because he knows hat what the conspirators did was wrong, but also he wants Caesars forgiveness, because he was such a good friend. He fights to get both these things during the play, but to get them he must be violent but also he shows his emotions to others. He did fulfill his goal partially, because the conspirators did die in the end, but they didn’t die regretting what they did, so Antony did not fully reach his goals. His other goal though, was to get forgiveness from Caesar, and you can’t be sure if he got that, because Caesar is dead, but I think that when he was done, Antony felt like he got that forgiveness. I believe that his goal was not worthy, because he brought so much chaos and destruction but Caesar is already dead, and there is nothing he can do about that. At the same time though, I do understand that Antony would be very angry, because what the conspirators did wasn’t noble or worthy at all either.
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