Brutus and Antony Rhetorical Analysis

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After the climactic point in the play, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, the characters Brutus and Antony both give speeches at Julius Caesar’s funeral. Brutus’ purpose in making this speech is to put the plebeians’ minds at ease and to explain why Julius Caesar was just assassinated. Brutus shows his love for the people of Rome to show that all he wants is to better the audience's lives. Antony has a much more sinister purpose for making his speech and that purpose is to seek revenge upon the people that have killed Caesar. He uses a sorrowful tone to bring out the anger within the plebeians. Antony’s speech was obviously the most effective one because he managed to bring the crowd into a mutinous frenzy. Brutus was able to effectively calm the crowd and provide them with reasonable explanations as to why Caesar was killed. Brutus begins his explanation of the assassination by asking the audience to listen and respect what he has to say. He uses his high ranking status to gain his credibility as an honorable man. He asks them to “believe me for mine honor” and to “have respect to mine honor.” He does this in order to make what he says afterward sound more believable. This works well in gaining him some credibility and believability. Brutus then moves to talking about how much love he had for Caesar. He appeals to their emotions by saying that his love to Caesar was no less than that of any dear friend of Caesar’s and that he did this “not that I loved Caesar less but that I loved Rome more. Through this he wants to show that he did not kill Caesar out a jealous rage but rather he did it for the better of the Roman people. This is effective in bringing a solid reasoning to his seemingly crazed killing. Brutus now continues by suggesting that if Caesar were to live they would all become slaves. He questions if anybody there “is so base that would

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