Figurative Language In Julius Caesar

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Victorian playwright, William Shakespeare, in his tragedy, Julius Caesar, writes a funeral speech delivered by Marc Antony about his dear friend, Julius Caesar 's, death. This followed Marcus Brutus’ speech which defended the actions of the conspirators that killed Caesar by claiming it was done for the good of Rome. Antony refutes these claims through his use of parallelism, making the plebeians analyze Brutus’ allegations, intense imagery to evoke a sense of pity and vengeance their fallen ruler, and reverse psychology that finally infames the plebeians against the conspirators. These strategies are used to indict the conspirators for the murder of a beloved Roman officer and incite the plebeians to riot against Brutus and his men.. Antony’s …show more content…

He compares himself to Brutus, claiming that he cannot “stir men’s blood” through his speaking as Brutus can (Shakespeare 224). First of all, this established a line of trust with his audience - Antony is able to convince the plebeians that he is not aiming to manipulate their actions, only to speak his truth of Caesar’s death. Feeling betrayed by Brutus at this point, this argument is effective in giving the plebeians a new faith in Antony’s words. However, in actuality, this statement is enough to compel the plebeians to the exact opposite. The common folk are made to “move / the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny” because of Antony’s enunciation (Shakespeare 230-231). At first glance, Antony mentions this only to provide a dissimilarity between himself and Brutus, claiming Brutus would have advocated for these acts. But Antony has a deeper meaning to this phrase, one that the plebeians latch onto and use as their rallying cry. By making this the last words he delivers on this topic, this phrase subliminally pushes his audience to revolt. This is because these plebeians are like children, they do the exact opposite of what they are told, only remember information for small periods of time, and are easily swayed. Antony uses these qualities to his advantage by using reverse psychology to persuade the plebeians to insurrection and purposely ending on a battle cry for this