Trying to convince someone into believing someone's side is hard to do especially when they have no idea how to give a persuasive speech correctly. In Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar, the characters are put into a situation where they much persuade their ¨audience¨ into believing/siding with them. A good example of this is Portia, who is trying to convince her husband, Brutus, into revealing his troubles to her. On the other hand, Anthony has Rome as a whole for an audience, he was trying to change the mind of the people to target the conspirators as the villians for killing Caesar. Both use rhetorical devices to their advantage to try and gain their ¨audiences¨ trust, and in the end both are successful in a way. Portia is the first of the two to speak to her ¨audience¨, using rhetorical question and metonymy throughout her …show more content…
Brutus commands Portia to not kneel for him and she is quick to explain she wouldn't have to if he would just tell her what was bothering him. She then brings up their marriage testing the strength of it, ¨Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus/ is it expected I should know no secrets/ that appertain to you?¨ (II.i.280-282). This rhetorical question is to make Brutus feel guilty for making Portia believe that Brutus sees no respect in their relationship. That he should not be keeping things from her since she is his other half. Even with the rhetorical question taking a blow to him he refuses to tell me, instead he tries to mend her sadness with words of love and appreciation for being his honorable wife. This however, does not stop her from continuing on with her attempt to coax his secrets out of him. She proceeds to use her status to show she is worthy of hearing his worries. Even as a female, as she puts it, does not