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Brutus Funeral Speech Analysis

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According to picturequotes.com, “Words are powerful. They can create or they can destroy. So choose your words wisely.” In Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, conspirators slay Julius Caesar, resulting in anarchy in Rome. Some agree with the death, while others oppose the sudden and violent death of Caesar. Unlike Antony, Brutus uses emotion rather than fact to sway the Roman people that Caesars death is justified. Although Brutus puts rules in place so he can not talk disrespectfully of the conspiracy, Antony, Caesar‘s closest friend, uses his slyness and manipulation in his funeral speech to persuade the Romans. Although both characters use analogies, parallelism, loaded words and hyperboles, their speeches convey very different …show more content…

By making the Romans think about this topic, Brutus gains support and the audience feels like the death of Caesar is justified. After Brutus finishes his speech, Antony speaks about his opinion on the issue; unlike Brutus, Antony acts slyly and communicates a very manipulative tone to persuade the Romans to rebel. Because of Antony's use of parallelism, he creates vivid reasoning for his speech. He states, “ I come here to bury Caesar, not to praise him” (III.ii.44). By using this device, he shows the people of Rome that he isn't praising Caesar, he is putting the leader to rest. This particular line creates a very manipulative tone, because his speech is all about what great this Caesar has done and how he wants to rebel against the conspirators. Further more, Antony uses a lot of irony to slyly get his point across. One example that he uses throughout the speech is “Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is a honorable man” (III.ii.44). Because of the repitition of this ironic statement, the meaning of it changes and intensifies. At first, his tone was sincere, but as the speech progresses, you can see his sarcastic tone increases. Antony does this because he has to use this device to surpass the regulations of Brutus, as well as make the romans listen. Lastly, he uses personification to give life and further meaning to a word. Early in the speech, Antony says, “The evil

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