Julius Caesar Rhetorical Devices

Hunter Hartman Mr. Ioannidis English 10 B 22 May 2024 How Antony Persuaded the Crowd In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, the crowd was convinced by Brutus, that Caesar was very ambitious and the conspirators made the right choice by killing him. Then Antony had his speech in which he used rhetorical devices to persuade the crowd into believing Caesar was a good person. Then he stated how the conspirators were not loyal like they said they were. He was so clever when he spoke, he completely controlled the crowd. He got them to do some crazy things. This shows the power of persuasion. In Brutus’s speech, he tried to explain how it was good for Caesar to die (“Compare And Contrast Brutus And Antony Speech | ipl.org”). This worked, because he had the

Then it was Antony’s turn to flip the crowd emotions the opposite way. When Antony spoke, he used the crowd's emotions and lack of knowledge to make them believe him. Antony knew the crowd was not very educated about whether or not killing Caesar was the right choice. So he knew it would be easy to persuade them. He kept repeating how the conspirators claimed to be loyal and trustworthy, but then he explained why they weren't (“Compare And Contrast Brutus And Antony Speech | ipl.org”). He was also clever enough to see how riled up the crowd already was. He knew if he got to their emotions they could do some damage to the conspirators, and that was exactly what he wanted. Antony clearly had a smarter approach to his speech, because he knew where the crowd's weak spot was and he knew how to get in their heads. He pretty much took the common logic out of their heads, and made them only care about emotion. What made his speech so much better than Brutus’s was how he used the conspirators’ fallacies to show how they were disloyal and shouldn’t have killed Caesar. He made the conspirators look like cruel killers that were just selfish and wanted Caesar

Brutus’s followers could argue that he was loyal and honest throughout his entire speech. He also cared about Rome with all his heart and killed his best friend just for the better of Rome. He is even loyal to his wife and people of lower power than him, so that should show the kind of person he is, and help Rome believe him more than Antony. He has also never once been unloyal or dishonest to Rome in his life. So he has that going for him, but he still has to compete against Antony’s clever mind and his good use of persuasion. Overall, Antony had the better speech, because he had a different intention for his speech. While Brutus was just trying to defend himself and get the crowd to see his perspective, Antony had nothing to lose and was able to describe Brutus and the conspirators as bad people. He also did it in a very emotional and sarcastic way, so the crowd felt bad for him. Antony also shows the reader how important persuasion can actually be. In the end it was very evident that Antony had won the crowd over and did have the better