ipl-logo

Persuasion In Julius Caesar's Speech

730 Words3 Pages
Persuasion can either be the most easiest or most difficult venture one could take on. It all depends on the different strategies used to make the argument effective. In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, two of the characters speak at Julius Caesar 's funeral, Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony, to address the reason of Caesar 's death. Both speakers use the rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos in their speeches to convince the people different reasonings of Caesar’s death.
In Marcus Brutus’s speech, he establishes credibility for the audience using the ethos appeal. In the first part of the speech Brutus acknowledges his honour, “... believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe…” (3.2.Brutus). He also tells the audience that he has “the same dagger for (himself)” that he used to killed Caesar to kill himself whenever “it shall please (his) country”(3.2.Brutus). Brutus’s goal by saying this in his speech is to make the people believe that he killed Caesar because he is an honourable man willing to do anything for the good of Rome even killing himself. But on the other hand, Mark Antony has a larger effect on the audience with his credibility techniques. He tells the audience that he “speaks not to disprove what Brutus spoke. But...to speak what (he does) know”(3.2.Antony). He adds on by saying he “would rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong (himself) and (the people), than (to) wrong such honourable men (Brutus
Open Document