Is+The+Choice+Truly+Ours?

= **__Is The Choice Truly Ours?__** =

Throughout the beginning of Shakespeare's //Julius Caesar//, Cassius and Brutus discuss how we decide our own fates. Cassius continuously talks to Brutus about the fault or blame for their actions is “not in our stars” (1.2.147); furthermore, he states that the blame for one’s failure should be directed towards their own actions instead of toward Fate. It is by their own choice that they choose to kill Caesar, not by Fate's choice. The only people to blame for their destinies are themselves. Brutus accepts this idea and decides it is his “fault” (1.2.4) for everything that has happened, and for everything that will happen, to Rome. He accepts that his decisions and those of others will decide his destiny. Shakespeare’s purpose in //Julius Caesar// is to say how “the stars” (1.2.2), or Fate, has no role in his play. All of the consequences Rome suffer through come from Brutus and Cassius’ hands and deeds. These two characters are, thus, separated from the rest of the cast as most other characters choose to blame Fate for their misfortunes. This is true of many other characters from literature as well; while many blame Fate for their circumstances, a person’s life is a result of his or her own actions. The idea that someone causes their own success or downfall, which is represented in //Julius Caesar// through Cassius and Brutus, is not unique to Shakespeare, and the same argument is paralleled through the character Ethan Frome in //Ethan Frome// by Edith Wharton as well as through the character Madame Defarge in //A Tale of Two Cities// by Charles Dickens because the characters in the novels create their own destiny.

Edith Wharton’s character Ethan Frome in //Ethan Frome// causes his own downfall and defeat without the help of Fate. Wharton supports Shakespeare’s purpose in //Julius Caesar// of illustrating the idea that Fate does not cause someone to fail; rather, their own actions determine their triumphant rise or their tumultuous downfall. Frome likes to pin the blame for his failure in lonely Starkfield on Fate and other people in his life when, in fact, he could have simply left Starkfield and never returned. Frome's failure and downfall comes from his own actions. He never clearly communicates or listens to Mattie or Zeena when they talk, and Frome only hears what he chooses to hear, which causes him to misinterpret many occurrences in his lifetime. If Frome could only realize his faults and improve them, he would have the power to change his personal fate to work in his favor.

Charles Dickens’s //A Tale of Two Cities// portrays Madame Defarge as constructing her own fate through her personal choice to hate the French nobility. Her immense hatred and lust for vengeance cloud her thoughts and cause her to become obsessed with killing the French nobility. Her obsession tricks her into thinking that her quest to kill the nobility is, and has always been, her destiny; however, if she would take a minute to calm down and truly think about what she's doing, Madame Defarge would be able see how she does not have to kill anyone in order to be happy. Fate does not affect the destruction of Madame Defarge; her own actions do. Her clouded judgement twists her mind to think that what she is doing is her true destiny; consequently she fails to realize that she has been in full control of her destiny from the start.

Cassius in //Julius Caesar//, Ethan Frome in //Ethan Frome//, and Madame Defarge in //A Tale of Two Cities// support the belief that people like to blame others for their mistakes and defeat although they possess the power to change their destiny themselves in order to be successful. Fate is not to blame for peoples’ disgraces; furthermore, it is personal own mistakes and flaws that destroy the person. Everyone has their own choices to make in life, and whether they choose to make those choices right is up to the individual. Though many people like to blame others or Fate for their failure in life, Fate is not the culprit; the culprit is ourselves. Shakespeare immortalizes his message to the human audience that our destination is our own and that “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, /but in ourselves, that we are underlings” (1.2.147-8 **). **