Ethos Pathos Logos In Julius Caesar

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Often teenage girls stress and struggle each morning to choose which pair of pants flatter them the best, which color accentuates their skin tone better, or which hoodie is the comfiest, yet no choice they have made can compare to Brutus’s choice between saving his best friend or the good of Rome. In the tragedy, “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare, Mark Antony plans to kill Caesar in order to prevent him from inheriting the crown, as well as all the power to control Rome. Antony involved Marcus Brutus, Caesar’s best friend, to help him carry out his schemes because he believed that having all the power in one person’s hands would corrupt them. Once Brutus makes the decision that rescuing Rome is more important than his dearest friend, the …show more content…

Mark Antony formulates his words in the perfect way that replies to Brutus’s speech prior to his, contradicting every point Brutus attempts to make. The old form of rhetoric, created by Aristotle, consists of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, each applying to contrasting points that is used to sway the audience. To start off, Ethos is used by Antony when he establishes that “he was [Antony’s] friend, faithful and just to [him]”, making it personal, as well as giving himself inside credibility (Shakespeare, III, ii, 87). Antony also lowers the value of Brutus’s ethos by stating over and over again, using repetition, that Brutus might not be as credible as he made it seem, …show more content…

While he is closing out with his speech, Antony shows the body of Caesar while saying “my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar”, in turn creating a very emotional feel by showing Caesar’s bloody body (Shakespeare, III, ii, 108). The way Mark Antony executed this device is similar to how fundraisers show pictures of victims to get the audience to care, rather than just showing statistics about poverty. With his final line, he creates a dramatic effect by forcing the audience to pause and reflect with him. He was able to have control over the crowd by commenting that “[he] must pause till it come back to [him]” in order to direct the audience (Shakespeare, III, ii, 109). Both of these devices form a sensational feeling on the listening audience to change the way they have been thinking about the situation by planting thoughts into their heads and merely connecting the dots for