Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas that are explored in a literary work, in this case it’s Fate versus Free Will. Julius Caesar raises many questions about the force of fate in life versus the capacity for free will. Cassius refuses to accept Caesar’s rising power and decides that a belief in fate is cowardly. He says to Brutus: “Men at sometime were masters of their fates. / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings” (Line 140-142 act 1 scene 2). Cassius returns to a more noble attitude toward life, blaming his and Brutus’s submissive stance on their own failure to assert themselves. The play seems to support an idea in which fate and freedom have maintained a coexistence. Here Caesar declares: “It seems to me most strange that men should fear, / Seeing that death, a necessary end, / Will come when it will come” (Line 35-37 act 2 scene 2). Caesar has realized that certain events lie beyond human control; and to be in fear of them is equal to, if not worse than death itself. So perhaps to face death head-on and die bravely, is possibly Caesar’s best option: in the end, Brutus interprets his and Cassius’s defeat as the work of Caesar’s ghost—not just his apparition, but also the force of the people’s devotion to him, the strong legacy of a man who refused any fear of fate and, in his disregard of fate, seems to have transcended it. How do I add in a reference to modern day 2021, and is there anything you would change?