In the Shakespeare play, “Julius Caesar” many types of rhetorical devices are used by numerous characters to persuade the audience. Marc Antony uses all these rhetorical devices to their fullest when talking to a crowd about the murder of Caesar and how these conspirators should be held accountable. The devices that Antony effortlessly crafts into his argument are irony, in the first half of his speech, and the props he uses, in the second half of his speech. Marc Antony uses verbal irony to indirectly led the crowd to new conclusions about the conspirators. Antony repeatedly states, “For Brutus is an honorable man” throughout the speech, while this alone doesn’t look ironic the added element of repetition will. Antony repeating this sentence after …show more content…
During the second half of the speech Antony states, “And, being men, bearing the will of Caesar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad.” He is using Caesar’s will and saying that it will make the people mad to manipulate the crowd into wanting to hear Caesar’s will and listening to Antony’s side of the argument, wanting the conspirators to be held accountable for Caesar’s death. Marc Antony later also uses Caesar’s body and the robes he was stabbed in as props. While gathering the crowd tight around him Antony states, “Look, in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through See what a rent the envious Casca made: Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed.” When only reading the text it might be hard to see at first but Antony is holding the body of Caesar while saying this. He pointed out the spots where the knives were plunged deep into Caesar’s skin and especially made an example of the spot where Brutus’s blade struck Caesar. This section of his speech has an uneasy feeling to it, emphasized by the fact he is using Caesar’s real body as a prop to make the crowd feel more emotion and feel the weight of what happened to