Comapring the Speeches of Mark Antony and Brutus in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

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Comapring the Speeches of Mark Antony and Brutus in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

The play 'Julius Caesar' reaches a peak of tension at the point of the

two speeches, and so it would seem whichever speech was enjoyed more

by the crowd would make the speaker the more popular. This was in fact

the case in the play. Mark Antony used better techniques of speech

than Brutus and he prevailed in the end.

After the conspirators have killed Caesar, Brutus agrees to let Antony

perform a speech, which Brutus thought would be a eulogy. Antony's

speech would be after Brutus' and Brutus hoped that the crowd would

understand his reasons, though this was secondary to his hope of a

better Rome. We know that Brutus is respected by the audience, and is

someone who the audience will give their time to. He was an

established and well-loved member of the Roman society. The crowd say

"We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied," which I understand as the

crowd saying tell us your reasons, you will tell us. Another citizen

goes on to say "I will hear Brutus speak" which gives an example of

the tolerance by the crowd towards Brutus, despite the fact he has

killed their ruler, they still are willing to go along with him,

provided they agree with his reasoning. The final quotation of

tolerance towards Brutus is "The noble Brutus is ascended. Silence!"

which shows they have respect for him, they call him noble, and a

citizen tells the crowd to be silent, to give Brutus a chance to

speak. Brutus now goes on to explain himself and tries to persuade the

crowd to agree with him and Cassius. This speech enthrals the crowd

for some time, despite the fact that t...

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...s that the whole of Rome could

fall as a result of the loss of Caesar.

Antony continues on to fix Brutus as the primary leader of the

conspiracy. He leaves the crowd with no option but to seek revenge on

Brutus and the rest of the conspirators. He has created a mob and they

are his mob. They go away to bury Caesar and to seek out the

conspirators.

So we have seen the different techniques used by the two opposing

parties, and we can deduct that the more effective was by far

Antony's. Partly because he could pick apart Brutus' speech and negate

Brutus' views from an early stage, but mostly because he knew what

would incite the crowd and make them feel hatred towards Brutus.

Brutus' biggest mistake was trusting that Antony was "a limb of

Caesar" and not thinking that Antony could seek revenge with his new

mob.

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