Julius Caesar Rhetorical Analysis Essay

In Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Mark Antony delivers a brilliant rhetorical address which destroys the pillars of logic in Brutus’ speech that rationalizes Caesar’s murder. Antony weaves the argument that Caesar was unjustly slain by ruining Brutus’ honor and disproving the claim that Caesar is ambitious. While Antony skillfully and successfully convinces the public of Caesar’s innocence, causing them to riot against Brutus and the conspirators, the reasoning in his address is flawed. Inadequately utilizing a key aspect of the first act of the intellect, he develops illogical definitions to describe the central words in his argument. Furthermore, using a division of the third act of the intellect, he constructs an inductive argument relying

By viewing the Antony’s speech through the acts of the intellect, it becomes apparent that the illogical flaws trump the logical strengths in his argument. Developing propositions through juxtaposition and conditionals, Antony weaves a complex syllogism to argue his stance that Caesar was unjustly slain. Considering the implied conditional in Brutus’ earlier speech: Since Brutus has “honor”, his statement that Caesar “was ambitious” is accurate, and therefore Caesar’s murder was just. Antony strives to decimate Brutus’ reasoning and develops his propositions that Brutus lacked honor and Caesar ambition using aspects of the second act of the intellect. He juxtaposes Caesar’s ambition with Brutus’ honor. In three instances, he retorts that Brutus is an “honorable man” who claims that Caesar “was ambitious”. Tying the validity of two statements together, he lays the groundwork for an implied conditional statement: If Brutus is honorable, then Caesar is

Consequently, Antony develops an inductive argument to prove the two propositions he established through juxtaposition; however, Antony’s argument is fallible as he relies on insufficient examples. Through the lens of the third intellect, taking a mere four examples in Caesar’s entire life to prove that he is unambitious is a fallacious line of reasoning. While the first example is sufficient, as it claims that Caesar was “faithful and just” for the duration of Antony and Caesar’s friendship, the other three examples are each one specific instance in the wide swath of Caesar’s life. From filling the “general coffers” with “ransoms” he brought home from war to weeping when the “poors have cried”, to rejecting the crown “on the Lupercal”. To prove that Caesar was not an ambitious man, these examples are far too specific, and their numbers are inadequate. Furthermore, Caesar demonstrated ambitious behavior, in the play, when he singles himself out as the only man who “unassailable holds on his rank” (Act 3). Scene 1 (ln 80) among the men of the