Essay on julius caesar

Submitted By Sarah-Pun
Words: 550
Pages: 3

“Examining the idea that “sometimes what is right to one person is wrong to another”, and this can generate diverse insights”
People have different thoughts of what “good” music is but does that mean one person I right and the other is wrong? Conflicting perspectives generate diverse insights into what we personally believe in while changing the way we perceive and think of certain situations, events and insights. It is through the funerary speeches of Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony that we are shown a prime example of the quote “sometimes what is right to one person is wrong to another”, as Shakespeare shows a representation of conflicting perspectives.
The representations of the power within rhetoric are to generate contradictions within the justifications of Caesar’s assassination as they supposedly come from good intentions. The difference between Brutus’s and Antony’s speech is the intentions Brutus’s and Antony’s speech is the intentions as Brutus chooses to speak with honesty, not making any attempts to manipulate the audience to agree with what he believed. Brutus’s dry, emotionless prose as he logically and impersonally tires to appeal to the wisdom and judgement of the crowd illustrating the different personalities he portrays within the play. The illustration of his contrasting thoughts is presented as he voices to the crowd, “Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, that that Caesar were dead, to live all freeman” presenting his use of persuasion as he tries to pull the audience to think like him, somewhat forcing them to agree upon Caesar’s death. As Brutus exits the stage, it shows his exit to power thus illustrating his argument being pushed aside by the audience. Through Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric that we are shown one side of the conflicting perspective demonstrating the diverse insights within the audience to the death of Caesar.
However, Shakespeare’s representation of an opposing perspective on Caesar’s assassination is presented through Mark Antony’s speech as his aim to portray the conspirators as “traitors” thus illustrating that how sometimes what is right to one person is wrong to another.