The Power Of Rhetoric In Julius Caesar

Humanity has become the most dominant species on Earth due to our high intelligence and communication skills but our communication can also be used to easily manipulate and convince. This manipulation is shown when, Mark Antony delivered a deeply passionate and articulate speech at Caesar’s funeral, altering the political dynamics of the Rome in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. Antony uses his words to influence the Roman people. He effectively uses rhetorical devices to prove his point and gain the support of the citizens. Antony also uses the rhetorical device of Pathos to invoke emotion in the crowd and Ethos to use Brutus’ and the conspirator’s reputation against them.

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.

Rhetorical Appeals are everywhere, it’s in advertisements , it’s on magazines etc..William Shakespeare uses them in order to appeal to the audience.In this essay, rhetorical appeals is the main topic.There are 3 types of rhetorical appeals.Pathos is used to stir feelings in the reader.Logos is the argument that is logical because of the convincing reasons and the logical evidence.Ethos is based on character credibility and or reliability of the author.William Shakespeare used rhetorical appeals to connect with the audience and make them interested in the play.

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

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.

In Julius Caesar, one of William Shakespeare’s more well-known plays, Marc Antony finds himself persuading a crowd who believe Caesar’s death was for the benefit of the Roman people. Antony had implored “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears” in an attempt to sway the crowd to give credence to his belief that Caesar’s death is a tragedy to the Roman folk and create a mutual bond between him and the crowd. This bond created by Antony is one of the very few times his speech dips into the realm of ethical appeals. The crowd of Romans had been originally convinced by the three main conspirators, mainly by Brutus, that Caesar’s death was to the benefit of all the Romans by portraying Caesar as a tyrant. Robert P. Yagelski had stated in chapter 8 of his book “rhetoric is the art of identifying the available means of persuasion. Antony had found which avenue to take and predominantly used pathos to manipulate the simple-minded folk to seek revenge and give the same sentence to the conspirators and Caesar had received.

“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.

What would you do if your friend was stabbed but you couldn’t tell? This was the exact situation Marcus Antony faced when his friend Julius Caesar was stabbed by many men called the conspirators. Antony has to give a speech to the Roman people at Caesar’s funeral where he talks about the great things Caesar has done for Rome and its people. He can not talk wrongfully of the conspirators or he will end up like Caesar so he has to effectively use his language to persuade the crowd into believing that the conspirators wrongfully killed Caesar without telling them that the conspirators wrongfully killed Caesar. In act three of Julius Caesar Antony uses so many rhetorical appeals in order to persuade the crowd such as, ethos to give an appeal to Caesar and Brutus, logos to get the Roman people to want to hear more of what he is not telling, and pathos to make the crowd feel sorry for Caesar and join Anthony’s side.

In the tragic play Julius Caesar there is a leader everybody looked up to named Caesar. Although people looked up to him he was not always loyal,trustworthy, or honorable. Some seen it before others and want to make a change and within that change Caesar had to be kilt. Brutus being Caesar friend knew the games that he played and became one of the ones that put an end to his games. With him being his friend he honoured him for all the good but as he was ambitious Brutus slew him. Maybe Caesar knew he was no good to Roman because once he seen Brutus standing upon the conspiracy something switched in him he no longer fought for his life. Caesar last words were “Et tu, Brutus(you too Brutus)then falls Caesar”.

The Roman senators all took part in betraying Caesar by murdering him. One of the main people involved, Brutus, held a funeral service for the deceased Caesar along with a brief speech. One of Julius Caesar's main companions who loved him dearly, Antony, also gave a speech that lasted much longer. After looking through the ethos, logos, and pathos mentioned in this story, it is obvious that Antony is more persuasive.

Some might say that the ability to effectively persuade people to do things is one of the most useful qualities a person can possess. However, it can also be one of the most dangerous. In Julius Caesar, a play by William Shakespeare, a group of conspirators were plotting to overthrow Julius Caesar, who was poised to become the leader of the Roman Empire. Because doing this was a mission that would require a larger group of people, the conspirators attempted to convince people to support their plan and join the group. In doing so, the conspirators used tactics that appealed to both the logic and emotion of others.

Mark Antony and Marcus Brutus from the play of “Julius Caesar” written by William Shakespeare, both try to persuade their audience if Julius Caesar is ambitious or a noble man. They both use rhetorical devices and persuasion very well, but unlike Brutus, Mark Antony is more persuasive in convincing his audience because he appeals to the audience’s emotions by embedding rhetorical questions, physically displaying emotions and sympathy, and capitalizing on his relations with Caesar throughout his funeral speech.

In the Tragedy Of Julius Caesar, Caesar was soon to be crowned king, after defeating Pompey. Caesar becoming king wasn’t the best idea and interest in some of the people eyes in Rome because they don’t think he is worthy enough to hold that type of power. Cassius was mad at the idea of Caesar becoming king, so he began to plot a plan to kill Caesar. His plan to kill Caesar involved a good friend of Caesar, Brutus and other loyal men and conspirators to make his plan work. So Cassius began plotting by convincing Brutus to join him and it worked, which was all Cassius needed to get close to Caesar. When the day actually arrives for Caesar to be crowned king their planned worked as Casca was the first to stab Caesar, and Brutus being the last person to stab Caesar and to hear the last words spoken from Caesar. After all this went down, Brutus went and spoke to the crowd and explained what happened and why they killed Caesar before being crowned king. The crowd agreed at first about Caesar needing to be killed until Antony spoke which changed everything and the crowds reaction. Now that the crowd had heard Antony, they want to kill the conspirators and who ever had a part in Caesar’s death. So now that you know the moral of “ Tragedy Of Julius Caesar” I will now discuss some examples of ethos, logos, and pathos.

In the tragic play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, the ruler of Rome, Julius Caesar, is stabbed to death by some of his so-called friends. Brutus, one of Caesar's best friends, is approached by some of the other senators to join the conspiracy to kill Caesar. Brutus weighs his options and decides to join the conspirators for the good of Rome. At Caesars's funeral, Brutus gives a speech to convince the citizens that the conspirators were right to kill Caesar. In contrast, Antony gives a speech to convince the Romans that there was no real reason to kill Caesar. Both characters try to persuade the audience, but they achieve different tones using literary and rhetorical devices. The tone of Brutus' speech is prideful, while the tone of Antony's speech is dramatic and inflammatory.