Julius Caesar Rhetoric Analysis

In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Caesar has become overly ambitious, so a group of men conspire to murder him. Many people and omens try to warn him of his doom, but he is too arrogant to think he will die. Calpurnia, his wife, tries to convince Caesar to stay at home; while Decius, one of the men who plots to kill him, insists that he comes to the Senate House. Calpurnia and Decius employ various rhetorical devices, which Calpurnia uses in an attempt to save Caesar from his fate, while Decius uses them to draw Caesar closer to his fate.

In Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar, Portia uses repetition, rhetorical questions, and parallelism in order to persuade Brutus to tell his secret. Portia uses repetition to get Brutus’ attention and to show him how much she wants to know the secret. Pleading, Portia urges, “I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. / Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus” (2.1.301,302). By using repetition she gets Brutus’ attention so he knows she is talking to him. If Portia did not repeat his name, Brutus would not be as inclined to listen to her. With Portia stating his name more than once he is focused on her and knows that what she is saying is vital. In this part of Portia’s speech she uses pathos. She persuades Brutus by bringing up their

Murder can be defined as the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Brutus and his conspirators murder Caesar and convince the people of Rome that it was a justified act. Mark Antony, a friend of Caesar, seeks justice for his dear friend. In his funeral speech Antony uses rhetorical strategies to persuade the Romans that Caesar’s death was unjustified. Through persuasion, Antony uses the strategies: rhetorical questions, verbal irony and the appeal of pathos to sway the Romans to believe that Caesar’s murder was unjust. Furthermore, Antony’s use of rhetorical questions has an effect on the opinions of the citizens of Rome.

In the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, an honorable man, Brutus, is planning to overthrow the soon to be king, Julius Caesar. Brutus is persuaded by Cassius that Caesar is a liar, too ambitious, weak, and not fit to be Rome’s king. Brutus soon believed Cassius, and they and the conspirators made a plan to kill Caesar. After Caesar’s death, Brutus planned to justify his actions of killing Caesar at his funeral in his speech to the people. After Brutus’s speech, the citizens of Rome were all in agreement that Brutus did the right thing for Rome. Brutus then decides to allow Caesar’s best friend, Antony, to speak in honor of Caesar. Antony speaks, and he convinces the citizens that Brutus’s actions were unjust and turned the people against Brutus.

“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force” according to Adolf Hitler, a master in rhetoric, who was able to sway the people of Germany into electing him as chancellor, and who was able to brain wash an army into creating the biggest mass genocide on the planet. This type of strategy is mimicked by Mark Antony in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Mark Antony’s extensive knowledge of rhetorical strategies, such as appeal to the emotions of the commoners, knowledge of topic and reputation, and syntactical devices eclipse Brutus’ reasoning for killing Julius Caesar and wins over the Roman commoners.

Many people know that Julius Caesar was betrayed and killed by many people who he had thought to be his friends. Some less common knowledge is that he did still have friends and others who stayed loyal to him. One man named Mark Antony was the most loyal of them all, even after Caesar’s death. When he found out Caesar had been killed, he began plotting to get on the traitor’s good sides and make it seem as if he had joined them so that he could convince the citizens to fight against them with him. He deceived the traitors and convinced them to let him speak at Caesar’s funeral, and in this speech he turned the citizens against them using very powerful rhetorical skills. After he had drove the traitors from the city, he took control of the city and led them to victory in a war against the conspirator’s armies. These are three telling examples that prove Antony’s skill and potential as a leader.

Julius Caesar, a play by William Shakespeare, has many instances of great rhetoric in the speech of its characters. Marc Antony, a main character and a pupil of the great Julius Caesar, has a speech that shows many uses of rhetorical appeal and devices. He is able to sway the citizens easily because of how strong his rhetoric is and how persuasive he is. Antony uses devices like dramatic irony, appeals (ethos, logos, pathos), and repetition to make the citizens believe in him and Caesar to disregard the conspirators argument.

Mark Antony, speaking at Julius Caesar's funeral, attempts to undermine the conspirators that killed Caesar and convince the belligerent crowd of Caesar's innocence. Antony appeals to the Roman citizens' senses of ethos, pathos, and logos to disprove Brutus', Cassius' and the other killers' innocence. Antony fights to secure justice for Caesar as he condemns the conspirators to the consequences of the crowd's newfound anger.

In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare’s characters Brutus and Mark Antony present eulogy speeches to the Roman masses. Brutus attempts to comfort the people by using logos and explaining that Caesar deserved his death as he became a tyrant. Antony, on the other hand, employs pathos when pointing out that Caesar was a just man and ruler who did not deserve death. Both of the men use ethos in their speeches to appeal to their listeners but Antony is far more successful in his application of this rhetorical strategy which sets the pace for what happens following the two speeches.

My group hopes that our version of Act 3 Scene 2 would have a profound impact on the audience. We hope that our audience can better understand the modes of persuasion such as logos, pathos, and ethos.

The conspirators convinced people to turn against Caesar was by telling them how much of a bad king he would be if they crowned him and everything that might change if hes in rulinng of Rome and also metion that they may not be safe either if hes also king so the need everyone to help because if everybody helps they get to keep there postions No one else is shown trying to persuade anyone to help, although the conspiracy is partially underway at the time Cassius makes a brilliant and forceful attempt to involve Brutus. It would appear that the assassination of Julius Caesar was Cassius' idea and that it was he who persuaded others to join him. No doubt the other conspirators have had secret conversations among themselves, but these are not

Dante may have thought that Brutus deserved to be chewed up and eaten alive by Lucifer himself, but others tend to disagree. People's view of Brutus and co-conspirators really depends on one’s mood at that time. Was it right for Brutus to kill Caesar to keep the Roman Republic alive? Logical thinking tends to side with Brutus while emotional thinking sides with Antony who believed Caesar was a just ruler. This is best seen at the funeral oration of Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Brutus and Antony each give a speech in order to prove that his side is the honorable side. Spoiler alert: Antony being a friend of Caesar completely trashes Brutus and the rest of the conspirators even after telling Brutus he would speak nicely of them. However

In William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a team of conspirators consisting of Brutus, Casca, Cassius, and Decius to name a few, conspire to murder Caesar, the soon to be crowned king, to save Rome from his power. Caesar receives many warnings of his coming demise to take place on the ides of march, but he refuses to acknowledge them. At his funeral, Mark Antony, loved by Caesar, was given permission by the murderers to give a eulogy for him after Brutus announced Caesar's death and convinced the commoners that Caesar deserved to die. But then as Mark Antony effectively utilizes a number of rhetorical devices in his eulogy about Caesar, he successfully turns the commoners from the side of the conspirators to his own, for he doesn't believe that the murderers were justified in the killing of Caesar.

The power of rhetoric is embodied throughout William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Specifically, in the context of Julius Caesar’s funeral, Brutus and Antony demonstrate the influence rhetorical appeals and devices have upon the audience’s opinion. In the justifying the murder of Julius Caesar, both orations appeal to the audience through ethos, pathos and logos. Respectively, the sense of reliability, emotional effects and the rationality executed in Brutus’s speech, yet more effectively accomplished in Antony’s speech, successfully transform the opinion of the audience from one view to the contrary. Brutus speaks first appealing to the audience through logic in hopes of suppressing the mutiny, and illuminating a more rational response. The audience is engaged as Brutus simply states that Caesar was overly ambitious, however, it is Antony’s subsequent oration that fully captivates the audience. Dismantling Brutus’s speech,

play, uses the other characters and plays with their feelings so he can get what he wants.