Superstition has been around almost since people first inhabited the earth. For this reason, it has played a main role in many classical pieces of literature. One of Shakespeare’s tragedies, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, is full of superstition and the supernatural. It contained so much superstition in order to foreshadow key events in the plot, to further develop characters, and to thrill and relate to the Elizabethan audience for whom the play was written. Foreshadowing was perhaps the main reason superstition was used in Julius Caesar. The supernatural provided hints to the reader about many important events to come. The most important event that was foreshadowed, without a doubt, was the death of Caesar himself by the hands of Brutus and the conspirators on the ides of March. When the soothsayer cries out “Beware the ides of march”(312; act1,sc2) he is truly laying the groundwork for the rest of the events leading up to Caesar’s assassination. Although Julius dismisses the soothsay with a simple “he is a dreamer, let us leave him. Pass.” (313; act1, sc2) the reader realizes that this date will prove important in the near future. To the audience, the prophecies are dramatic irony-when Caesar is warned about the ides of March, we already know what is going to happen to him. (Farrow) That one simple dialogue sets the stage for the rest of the plot to advance swiftly.One of the reasons why this warning may have gone unheeded is because most sooth-sayers were not well respected, though many turned out to be right. “Since they lack any formal office or shop, and they predict forthcomings without fee, one can see quite easily why citizens would distrust their predictions”(Julius) One of the most graphic examples of Caesar...
