Julius Caesar Essay: Mark Antony The Great Speaker

“Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear./ Believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe” (Shakespeare III. ii. 13-14). It is apparent hear that he is holding himself to a high esteem and appears as an authority figure to them, while Antony takes a completely different approach, he mourns with them and even cries on the stage, as evidenced by the fact that he pauses and states “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,/And I must pause till it come back to me.”(Shakespeare III. ii. ) midway through his speech. Antony brings himself down the people’s level and speaks to them as though he is one of them and additionally he makes it seem as though Caesar was one of them. Antonius puts all men on an equal playing field, while Brutus inadvertently exalts

Antony prepares the crowd for his heart wrenching tales of Julius Caesar, and his injustice. “If you have tears prepare to shed them now” (III.ii.166). He goes on later in his speech, saying, “Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through. / See what a rent the envious Casca made. / Through this well-beloved Brutus stabbed; / And as he plucked his cursed steel away, / Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, / As rushing out of doors to be resolved / If brutus unkindly knocked or no; / For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel” (III.ii.171-178). Antony lets everyone know that Brutus has done so much wrong by Caesar, not only because he killed him, but because he was his trusted friend. “...These are gracious drops. / Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold / Our Caesar’s vesture wounded?...” (III.ii.191-193). Antony tells everyone that it is okay to cry, which evidently makes him look kind, but also sparks up a fire in the citizens. They continue to scream, “Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! / Let not a traitor live!”

Antony and Caesar were good friends, and when Antony learned of Caesar’s murder, he began plotting to dethrone the conspirators who had planned his death. He sent a citizen to the palace where the traitors were and told him to relay a message; “If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony may safely come to him and be resolved how Caesar hath deserved to lie in death, Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead so well as Brutus living, but will follow the fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus through the hazards of this untrod state with all true faith.” What Antony is saying to Brutus is that if

Antony was looked down upon by all the conspirators except for Brutus. They wanted to kill Antony as well as Caesar because they feared that he would become as powerful as him and possibly a dictator. Brutus persuaded the others not to add to the assassination by saying, "And for Mark Antony, think not of him: for he can do no more than Caesar's arm when Caesar's head is off"(2.1.181-183). Brutus underestimated Antony and perceived him as a person who didn't always take life seriously, couldn't have a serious nature and therefore, not a thinker. Brutus continued to argue with Cassius who did not believe him. "Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him. If he love Caesar, all that he can do is to himself -- take thought and die for Caesar. And that were much he should, for he is given to sports, to wildness, and much company (2.1.185-189). Brutus judged him as being frivolous, and simply liking sport and partying, with a reputation for womanizing. Unfortunately for Brutus and the conspirators he was respected by Caesar and so simply couldn't be ignored.

Both Mark Antony and Marcus Brutus are great at using people’s emotions to grab their attention. In Brutus’s speech, he used the feeling of slavery: “Would you rather have Caesar alive and all die slaves, than Caesar dead to all live free men?” Nobody wants to be a slave and would feel angry if they were. Brutus is using this feeling to make it sound like Caesar would have made them all into slaves but because he is dead, they are all free. If one thinks about it some more, the people were like slaves under Caesar’s power. They weren’t free to do as they liked due to the fact that if it upset Caesar, you’d be executed. After Caesar was dead, the people were free to do as they pleased. Brutus used the emotion of anger to show that he killed Caesar so the people could be free of his controlling power.

       In William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, although Marc Antony is allowed to make a speech at Caesar's funeral, he must not speak ill of either the conspirators or Caesar.  Antony was infuriated with Caesar's assassination, and wants to seek revenge on his killers as well as gain power for himself in Rome's government.  He must persuade the crowd that has gathered that Caesar's murder was unjust, and turn them against Brutus and Cassius.  He tries to stir his listeners' anger, rousing them into action and yet say nothing bad about his enemies.  Marc Antony uses several persuasive devices in his speech, which allows him to successfully convince the citizens of Rome to turn

Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, tells a story about who Julius Caesar was and how he came to die. It introduced the characters Cassius and Brutus, who were the reasons Caesar died. Brutus was a senator of Rome and was a very close friend to Julius Caesar and loved him but as he said in the book (Act 3 scene 2 page 127) “The reason I killed Caesar was not that I loved Caesar less, but I loved Rome more” This part of the speech was to prove that this is what caused him to kill Caesar. It also introduced a character named Marc Antony. He was a man who loved Caesar a lot and planned to kill and turn the country against Brutus, Cassius, and the other conspirators for killing Caesar.

Antony values Caesar as a friend and as a role model, he uses ethos to display this throughout his speech. Antony says, “The good is oft interred with their bones, (III, ii, 84).” This shows how Antony values the way people see Caesar. The crowds morals were not in the same place as Antony’s after talking to Brutus. Antony uses ethos to show the crowd why they should care and change their perception on Caesar's death. He continues in saying, “ He was my friend, faithful and just to me,(III, ii, 93).” Antony values his friendship with Caesar, this shows the crowd Caesar was a reliable and genuine person and not just ambitious.He also says, “ O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel, (III, ii, 203).” Antony shows he relates and sympathises with the people and what they expected from Caesar before he

The primary details that the passage tries to get across is that Marcus Brutus, the man who killed Caesar, gave Antony conditions in which he would have to go by in order to be allowed to speak at Caesar’s funeral. The note lists, “Brutus would speak first, Mark Antony would speak immediately afterwards, Antony would not blame the conspirators, and Antony would admit that he spoke with the conspirators’ permission.” This shows dramatic irony due to the fact that us readers, Mark, and Brutus know about the rules that were set. Passage four is the speech that Antony gave at the funeral in Shakespeare’s play. Mark follows the guidelines given by Brutus, saying exactly what he has to.

Therefore, Antony is trying to prove that once the conspirators are in his sights, no one is getting out alive. While Marc Antony is giving his speech to the common people trying to persuade them that the conspirators are in the wrong: “In every wound of Caesar that should move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny” (131). From this moment every action that Antony does will in turn affect the stability of Brutus’ physical and mental well being. Also, Brutus does not realize how close Caesar and Antony are, which can only lead to his demise because Antony is trying to kill him and he does not realize it. During Antony’s speech, to persuade the common people, he walks over to Caesar’s body to show the people all the wounds: “Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us” (129). Antony is exaggerating, in a light hearted way, the fact that Brutus stabbed Caesar; for the conspirators told

Brutus said that they had to kill Caesar because he was ambitious. Mark Antony used questions like “You all did see on the Lupercal, that I presented him thrice a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” and “When the poor have wept, Caesar hath cried: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” to imply that Caesar was not ambitious at all. Mark Antony also uses apostrophe, or the turn from an audience to a specific person that is either absent or present, real or imaginary. It is used in the line “O judgement! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason” to emphesize that the Romans were foolish to listen to Brutus’s reasoning as to why the conspirators killed Caesar. The reaction to Mark Antony’s speech was more than that of Brutus’s. The citizen’s began to rally together to take down the conpirators, and vowed to kill every last one of them.

"Friends, Romans, and Countrymen lend me your ears"(49). In the play Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare, Mark Antony is given an opportunity to speak at Caesar's funeral. In his speech, Antony addresses the death of Caesar and draws attention to the foul play at hand. Not only that, but he also discusses the legacy that Caesar left behind. In doing so, Marc Antony uses verbal irony to being to light the conspirator's betrayal toward not only Caesar, but to the people of Rome.

In Mark Antony’s funeral speech he provides evidence to his audience towards why Caesar didn't deserve to die. Before he started praising Caesar, within his speech he stated, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”(Act III, Scene 2, line 76) but he did the opposite. Antony said, “He brought many captives home to Rome, whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.”(Act III, Scene 2, line 89). This is an example of how Caesar loved Rome and his people. He tells the audience that Caesar has

“When the poor cried, Caesar wept” (3.2.189). Similarly to this phrase, Marc Antony uses several literary techniques to paint Julius Caesar in a positive light during his speech. In the play Julius Caesar several conspirators devise a successful plan to murder and overthrow the ruler of Rome. The death of Caesar could easily be seen as the cusp of his impact on the story; however, despite after death, Caesar plays a huge role in further development of the plot. Following his beloved friend’s assassination, Marc Antony delivers a stirring speech that could easily be seen as a critical turning point. Antony cleverly persuades the commoners to join his cause for vengeance. Throughout his empowering speech to the plebeians, William