Why do some characters in Shakespeare's plays make decisions more quickly than others?
Romeo and Cassius are two Shakespearean characters that have something in common, they both kill themselves at the end of the play in which they appear. One would think this act would be drawn out and include line upon line of dialogue debating what to do, however this is not the case. In Julius Caesar it takes a mere glimpse, at what Cassius perceives to be his defeated army, for him to request that his servant stab him. Likewise Romeo needed only to see his dead lover for him to be willing to commit suicide on the spot. While one might think that making rash decisions like this is just a trend in Shakespeare's plays, it is not. Hamlet, for instance, takes a whole monologue to debate whether or not he should kill himself and ends up not doing it. So in order to understand this play, and Cassius' character, we must first ask, what does his quick decision making say about his character, and why was this significant to Shakespeare?
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