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The Power of Persuasion in the Speech of Antony in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

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In speeches, there are always more than one point of view from peoples perspective. One person can explain his speech in his perspective and the other person tells his point of view from his perspective. Either way, they use persuasion to get the audience attention. “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” a play created William Shakespeare around 1599, It was a play about a group of conspirators plotting a murder to the hero Julius Caesar. Antony‘s funeral oration shows the power of persuasive speaking as he turns a hostile audience into true believers for his own purposes. Brutus makes his speech formula to reason the mobs for killing him a good say, instead of a killer.

Antony‘s speech was more successful because Antony knows how to feel the heart of the mob. It can also be seen with ethos, pathos and logos while Brutus‘ speech was a failure because his use of the three was weak. Antony‘s speech is successful because he knows how to “turn the tide” against his enemies, Unlike Brutus, who started the speech as “Romans, countrymen and friends”, Antony started his speech by saying “Friends, Romans and countrymen” which shows the importance about how he feels and whose more important in his life. His tone was filled with depression because Antony, the speaker, was sad about the loss of his friend.

He was also using rhetorical questions to prove his point and indirectly expresses his feelings about the feels towards Brutus and his doings. He also used anaphora by repeating the line “But Brutus says he was ambitious and Brutus is an honorable man” the repetition emphasis Antony‘s tone about how he believes Brutus is wrong, The appeal was more emotional and his words were from his heart. An example would be when Antony states in the line “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar and I must pause till it come back to me”, which shows his feelings to Caesar. Therefore, he also used pathos for his speech to become more effective towards the audience. Pathos is appealed by Antony somewhat indirectly questioning Brutus‘ honor and accusation. In Antony’s speech, it shows another reason why he was successful was because he used pathos in one of his lines Antony says “This was the unkindest cut of them all.”

Antony makes an emotional connection with the crowd when he makes them look at the stab Brutus created, drawing on the emotion of pity, anger and distrust. Antony also claims that “He was my friend, faithful and just to me”. This shows that Caesar was a man who is trustworthy and untrust to kill. Logos can be facts that can be used to convince someone. In his speech, Marc Anthony used a lot of facts throughout his speech One example would be “When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept”. This is logical to Antony because the people he tried to persuade aren’t rich people on Romet So when he uses the word “poor” as the type of people Caesar went for, the crowd thinks it was wrong to murder someone who cared so much for them.

The second time when Antony uses logos was when he was reading Caesar’s will. He says “ To every Roman citizen he gives, to every several man, seventy-five drachmas”. This line gain the power to make the citizens feel sorrow about Caesar’s death. Brutus‘ speech was useless and ineffective from the beginning, He comes toward to the citizen as nobles but really, just peasants who cannot figure out for themselves what is right or what was wrong, was Brutus mistake Throughout the speech, Brutus mentions how he loves Caesar and how no one was remorse for the death of Caesar than himself. After paying tribute to the life of Caesar, Brutus explains that he killed him because he loved Rome more than Caesar and that Caesar became ambitious.

The aftermath of Brutus~ speech is an unbalanced crowd that have jumped on the ambition bandwagon due to the appealing words of Brutus‘ passion for Rome. But in reality, they did not understand of the speech at all. In conclusion, Antony’s speech was far more successful than Brutus because he used ethos, pathos, and logos Very effectively. Brutus~ speech was a failure because he lacked those three Antony briefly explained his sorrow and hits behind Caesar’s death, Brutus also approached the citizens as if they were intelligent nobles and would easily lure them in like a lowly man while Antony legitimately persuade the crowd.

Cite this paper

The Power of Persuasion in the Speech of Antony in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. (2023, Jun 19). Retrieved from https://samploon.com/the-power-of-persuasion-in-the-speech-of-antony-in-william-shakespeares-the-tragedy-of-julius-caesar/

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