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Examples Of Antony's Speech In Julius Caesar

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William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” is a political drama that explores the power of persuasion in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination. Two of the main characters, Marcus Brutus and Marc Antony have very different approaches to convince the people of Rome to support their ideals. While Brutus appeals to the audience's honor and patriotism, Antony manipulates the emotions of the audience through irony and appeals to their grief and greed. Throughout his speech Marc Antony manipulates and appeals to the grief and greed of the Roman people. Antony ironically calls Brutus and Cassius “Honorable men” (III,ii,85) throughout his speech in order to make the audience think he respects Brutus and Cassius. Another example of Antony appealing …show more content…

In his speech he appeals to the crowd's sense of duty to their country asking “Is anyone here so vile that they will not love his country?” (III,ii,34) In saying this Brutus fills the audience with a nationalistic pride. In addition to appealing to the patriotism of the people he also appeals to their sense of honor. Brutus describes how Caesar's ambition led to his death, saying “I honor him but as he was ambitious, I slew him” (III,ii,27-28) He justifies his actions in saying, “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” (III,ii,22-23). Brutus' appeal to patriotism and honor prove to be an effective approach. In comparison to Antony’s approach, Brutus’s speech relies much more on the rationality and intellect of the crowd, Brutus presents a logical argument and appeals to the people's sense of responsibility and duty. The success of Brutus' speech is seen in the crowd shouting “Live Brutus! Live, live!/ Let him be Caesar.” (III,ii,50/54) However Brutus' speech can also be seen as manipulative. While patriotism and honor are noble ideals, those same ideals can be used to justify immoral or unjustifiable

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