The Tragedy of Coriolanus

Shakespeare's play, Coriolanus, opens with the Citizens, the working class, uprising against Caius Marcius (soon to be Coriolanus), who they believe is chief enemy to the People. Marcius does indeed have great disdain for the Citizens, but he needs their votes to become Consul, a political position of great power that his mother Volumnia believes would be his crowning achievement. Caius Marcius Coriolanus is a man of righteous and inflexible ideals-will he be able to play the political game to gain the votes and trust of the Citizens? His mother, Volumnia, is one of Shakespeare's remarkable women. Her son Caius Marcius took the town of Corioles himself, blanketed in blood, but Volumnia alone saves the city of Rome, without violence, but still at great cost to herself.