George Reuss Linda Comm Honors English 10 14 April 2023 Antony’s Persuasiveness “If you wish to win a man over to your ideas, first make him your friend.” This is a quote from Abraham Lincoln, and it can be applied to Antony’s speech during Caesar’s funeral. Antony begins his speech using ethos to try and befriend the crowd before applying into logos and pathos to completely win the crowd over. In the story The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, Antony’s goal in this speech is to persuade the unruly and confused crowd to be in support of him and Caesar, and not the conspirators. Antony completes this goal by using a mix of ethos, logos, and a considerable amount of pathos to slowly turn the crowd against the conspirators. Antony …show more content…
He continuously says how much Caesar loved the people of Rome, hoping to entice the crowd. Antony yells, “It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you,” (Shakespeare 3.2.138). This reinstates the idea that Caesar loved all the citizens of Rome. Antony knows that if the crowd knows this, it will continue to fuel their rage against the conspirators. The next use of pathos in the speech is Antony’s large story, that is completely fabricated, just to continue his plan of turning the crowd in his favor. Antony’s story goes as follows: “Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through. / See what a rent the envious Casca made… Even at the base of Pompey's statue, / Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell,” (Shakespeare 3.2.171-186). Antony creates this story out of thin air, because Antony did not actually see the assassination of Caesar take place. However, Antony knows that if he blows the scene out of proportion, people will be sorrowful now that he convinced them to like Caesar. The emotional value of this story had a great effect on the crowd, and their fiery rage for the conspirators was now even stronger. These powerful uses of pathos is the final way Antony is able to turn the crowd’s feeling about Caesar into a positive feeling and finalize the crowd’s hatred for the