Portia and Calpurnia

Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar focuses on the theme of gender, demonstrating how the roles of men and women were different in ancient Rome. Portia and Calpurnia are noble, smart, intuitive and devoted wives of Brutus and Caesar respectively, but even for them it is difficult to prove themselves in the male world. Both of them feel that tragedy is going to happen but their influence on their husbands is too low to make them their trusted ones.Brutus is plotting against Caesar and hides this from everyone, including his wife. In her turn, Portia cannot stand this attitude because she believes her husband’s haughty attitude is not fair. However, she agrees with the viewpoint that females are generally inferior to men in all aspects but she believes herself to be special because of her background and character traits:I grant I am a woman; but withalA woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter.Think you I am no stronger than my sex,Being so father'd and so husbanded? ( Shakespeare 2.1.6)Brutus does not trust his wife, so he has no one to change his plan to kill Caesar. If he could listed to an opinion of a close person, he would have had a chance to hear a more reasonable opinion, which might change his mind.Calpurnia is more feminine than Portia, she is probably less strong and not so full of pride. Yet, she has intuition as her gift, so she sees a prophetic dream about Caesar’s murder. Yet, because he is not used to taking a woman’s opinion seriously, he ignores the warning that his wife gives to him. Besides, his advisors claim that women have no idea about the right interpretation of dreams, so he chooses another man’s opinion to believe it. However, if Caesar could think about potential danger predicted by his wife, he would have probably stopped being so careless and would have taken measures to defend …