Brutus Vs Antony Rhetorical Analysis

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Rhetorical Differences The reason Brutus failed to continue to have the citizens of Rome persuaded is simplified in this quote by Robert A Heinlein: “You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.” Brutus failed while Antony succeeded because Brutus relied on logic whereas Antony relied on the emotions of the people. Despite the fact that Antony did it for the wrong reasons, he obviously was more skilled in rhetoric than Brutus. This is evident from Brutus’ overuse of logic and under use of emotion to persuade the crowd. Whereas, Antony largely appealed to emotion and shocking the crowd to make them love Caesar again and hate Brutus. Most of the ethos used by the speakers …show more content…

Brutus uses it by saying “Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?” (III,ii,27-28). This evoked a feeling of being unworthy if someone disagreed with Brutus. Unlike Brutus Antony uses emotion generously throughout his speech. His strongest use of this was when he showed the holes in Caesar's cloak and said this about Brutus’ stab “This was the most unkindest cut of all.” (III,ii,178). Even though Antony didn't actually know what cut was from Brutus, this was still effective in making the crowd have a strong reaction of pity for Caesar. Antony used ethos the most but both of the speakers used it effectively to sway the crowd.
After analyzing the logos, ethos, and pathos of these speeches it is clear that Antony understood his audience more and thus he had the best speech. Antony knew that his audience didn't care about ethos so he used it briefly. Brutus relied mostly on logos whereas Antony gave just enough for the crowd to rally around. However the major component of Antony’s speech is his use of pathos. Antony knew his audience would respond best to emotion so he based his argument off of it. Brutus failed to realize who he was talking to and this caused him to make an argument that was weak to his