Julius Caesar Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Words: 539
Pages: 3

Ambition drives us everyday, and to some extent it is ok, but there is a point to which you need to be stopped, and that is what Brutus and Cassius saw in Caesar. This resulted in them killing him as a sacrifice for the good of Rome. Antony, a loyal friend of Caesar’s, now wants revenge on the conspirators, and to do that he is going to use his way of word to rally the commoners. Initially, Antony seems to be understanding of the conspirators, but when the funeral starts, you can see a swift change in his mood. You can see throughout his speech that his end goal was really to hurt the conspirators, the beginning of his speech was almost all sarcasm. In William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Antony uses ethos, logos and pathos to persuade the commoners to retaliate against Brutus and the rest of the conspirators. …show more content…
He starts off introducing himself, asking the “Friends, Romans, countrymen” to “lend [him their] ears”(3.2.72). He uses an imperative sentence to get the crowd's attention like Brutus had done in his speech. Whereas unlike Brutus, Antony tries to sound less demanding and connects himself to the audience. He used the word lend to make it seem short-term, and ears to make it seem small. This makes it sound as if he is just asking and has no power over any of them. As Antony goes on, he sounds sincere as he “speak[s] not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know”(3.2.98-99). He is telling the crowd that his only purpose for speaking there was to speak about Caesar’s life, and not go against what Brutus said about Caesar’s ambition. He uses antithesis to show that he is upholding his deal to Brutus which make his intentions seem sincere and unquestionable. Antony successfully used his way of words to make it seem as if he is a friendly guy with nothing but good