A Comparison of the Speeches Made by Brutus and Antony Over the Body of Caesar

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A Comparison of the Speeches Made by Brutus and Antony Over the Body of Caesar

“Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!”

So claims Cinna as Caesar is fallen. Brutus his trusty friend killed

for Rome while Cassius his jealous counterpart killed over hate. The

conspirators brought his body to the market place to show the people.

Over the corpse, two speeches were made. In this essay I will compare

and contrast these two speeches.

Both of the speeches have similar have similar beginnings. Brutus

starts off with

“Romans, countrymen and lovers!”

He starts with “Romans”, because in his eyes he feels his country is

more important then his lovers, Caesar. He realises how much the crowd

feel pride in their country, so manipulates their weak spot, in the

hope that they will see his point of reason. This type of language is

formal and elaborate, and he speaks as though he is talking to the

senate. Antony, however, begins with

“Friends, Romans, countrymen”

By calling the crowd his friends, he is considering himself as though

he is on their level, rather than elevating himself like Brutus.

Through this, familiar and direct language, the crowd feels closer to

Antony, because they realise that it is like speaking to their friend,

rather than speaking to the senate, the way Brutus makes it. Antony

realises the crowd react more to a ‘friend’ rather than someone from

the senate, so continues to adhere himself to the crowd later, when he

steps down and wants them all to physically move closer, gather round.

The two speeches both end in with a pause. Brutus pauses, because he

has just asked a rhetorical question, and knows no one wil...

... middle of paper ...

... this to make sure that the conspirators did not get away with

this murder, but we know, he wasn’t just upset, but very angry, so

much so that when he was alone on the stage he said that

“Mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war”

And also

“Let slip the dogs of war”

so we see that he wanted there to be a civil war, because of his

extreme anger over Caesar’s death.

The crucial distinction between the two speeches, are that Antony has

a clear understanding of the crowd psychology, and persuade the crowd

to see his notion very easily because of this. Brutus does not

understand what makes the crowd tick, and this characteristic is

clearly the most important feature of making Antony’s speech so

effective, and Brutus’ an unconvincing, ineffective, dire address.

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