Abstract
This thesis aims to analyze and define the real personality of Marcus Brutus. His characterisation is one of the problematic issues of the play. The complexity of his behaviour, and the ambiguity of his motivations have been a point of contention among critics who have been concerned about the psychoanalytic insight of his personality, yet they have been dismissive of psychoanalyzing his personality in order to figure out his real character type. This thesis therefore attempts to fill this gap in literature, and to answer the overarching question of whether Brutus is a tragic hero or a villain by adopting the Aristotelian definition of the tragic hero as criteria. This question is approached through the Freudian theory of the tripartite psyche, in order to probe into both his unconsciousness and consciousness. Furthermore, this theory is underpinned by the Ricoeurian philosophy of hermeneutic phenomenology, and its underlying principle is “Hermeneutic of Suspicion” by which Brutus’ overt personality is suspected to have covert truths. The analytic process follows the three phases of the Ricoeurian “hermeneutic arc”: the pre-understanding phase is a surface holistic reading of Brutus’ personality; the explanation phase is an in-depth interpretation of his personality by using the theory of the tripartite psyche; and the appropriation phase is a comprehension of his personality. There is an oscillate movement between the pre-understanding and the explanation phase until the researcher fully comprehended Brutus’ personality. The results of this movement is a rejection of the first phase findings by the interpretation of the second phase, while the former concluded that Brutus is a tragic hero flawed by his own idealism and Stoicism, the latter concluded that Brutus is governed by his id’s impulses which divide him into two contradicting personalities: a private and a public one, thus his ego seeks to deceive everyone by taking his ego ideal’s principles as a façade for his self-interested and aggressive desires. Finally, the appropriation phase compared the results of the explanation phase to the Aristotelian definition of the tragic hero and concluded that Brutus by the covert and the dynamic structure of the play is the villain of the piece.