As Rome enters turmoil and political turbulence from the murder of their emperor, Julius Caesar, two men seize the chance to sway the citizens of Rome. Brutus, is a noble and amiable man, who wants Rome to thrive, even if it necessitates murder. And Antony, Caesar’s right-hand man, craves to avenge Caesar and persecute Brutus and the Conspirators. The population of Rome is divided, but Antony manages to sway Rome using pathos through the intimate nature of his companionship with Caesar and highlighting Caesar’s selflessness and leadership qualities, painting him as a martyr and Brutus and his affiliates as cold-blooded murderers working to achieve the destruction of Rome. Coming from a position of treachery and malice, Brutus addresses his audience to make a plea to defend his heinous crime and slander the character of …show more content…
If then that friend asked why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Shakespeare 3.2.16-22) Brutus then employs a slippery slope fallacy as well as an either-or fallacy by presenting the argument: “ Had you rather Caesar were living and dying all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men?” (Shakespeare 3.2.22-24) Brutus presents the idea that Caesar’s reign would strip all citizens of their liberties, without any evidence nor any precursor signs in Caesar’s demeanor. Brutus pushes the idea of Caesar‘s leadership leading to the enslavement of the Roman people without any events in between, nor any correlation between those events. Brutus’s speech fails to persuade the audience and pales in comparison to Antony’s due to Brutus’s loss of ethos and logical fallacies, undermining his
In William Shakespeare's, Julius Caesar, rhetorical devices are used throughout Decius Brutus’s speech to Caesar to persuade him to attend the senate, and ultimately meet his demise. Decius Brutus uses repetition to directly play into Caesar’s ego and convince him to show at an event he was previously very unsure of. Decius first uses repetition to make Caesar feel as if he were an irreplaceable addition to the senate. He addresses Caesar as, “most mighty Caesar…” (2.2.74) multiple times throughout his oration. The repetition of “mighty” draws Caesar’s attention away from the fact that he really must not go to the senate and instead focuses on why he must. Caesar is known to be easily persuaded by the promise of attention or rewards. Decius
In speechcraft, orators have reverted to three basic concepts to persuade an audience; ethics, logic or emotion. All views are powerful, the path of emotion, or pathos, has stirred men to riots, the path of ethics, or ethos, has reminded people of the basest of their knowing and the path of logic, or logos, has calmed the savagest of beasts to men. No matter how human's develop, they retain the remnants of their not so distant cousins, animals. This is apparent when one takes note in the brain's ability to overcome human speech with basic emotions, to ‘render one speechless’ if you will. In these cases, much like animals, humans are propelled into action, leaving behind civilized concepts,
Imagine yourself listening to a political debate, undecided as to which leader you agree with. One candidate begins to speak about unjust societal issues, such as the horrifying amount of people in the world that do not have food on their table. The candidate also begins to touch upon the topic of taxes and how he will lower them if he is elected. You find yourself being persuaded in the direction of emotions and morals. The power of language used to appeal others is not only present in the modern world, but also in the play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, written by famous English playwright William Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar portrayed a story of how an aspiring leader, Julius Caesar, is assassinated by a group of schemers, lead by Marcus Brutus, who disagreed with Caesar’s decrees and ways of governing. Over the course of the text, it demonstrated the use of two rhetorical charms: ethos and pathos. While ethos refers to the moral and ethical appeal and pathos invokes to the emotional aspect, each one was evidently shown in the funeral speech for Caesar given by his best friend, Mark Antony. Prior to Antony’s speech, Brutus had given the plebeians a synopsis of what had occurred. However, Mark Antony knew that what Brutus had told the plebeians was false. In such manner, he allured the plebeians onto his side of the tragedy by touching upon ethical and emotional appeals.
Rhetorical devices have been around for many centuries, and they are used to convince and persuade people to believe in their cause. These strategies exploit individuals by influencing them to feel sympathy or trust the speaker. In Julius Caesar, a historic tragedy written by the prominent Shakespeare, Antony’s brilliant rhetorical strategies are used to trump Brutus and prompt the Roman people to unite with his rebellion against the unjust butcher of the beloved Julius Caesar.
In this day and age, persuasion can be seen on almost any screen. The average American views thousands of advertisements every week. Most ads are simply pushed out of a person’s mind, but the successful advertisements are the ones that resonate with people. Some forms of ads are very annoying to those who put up with them constantly. Online pop-up ads, for example, are proven to do worse for products and business than no advertising at all! This is because this form of advertising does nothing to convince or persuade the person viewing the ad, and no effort is put into actually put into proving what it’s worth to make a point. Pop-ads make zero use of something known as “rhetorical devices”. In Julius Caesar, Brutus and Mark Antony both try to convey their point of view to a large audience of Roman citizens. One had a better speech than the other since he used “rhetorical devices” more effectively. Logos (logical; what makes sense), Ethos (ethics and morals; portraying similar beliefs and values), and Pathos (emotions; natural feelings that can be counterintuitive to logos) are the rhetorical devices that Aristotle
“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” (3.2.24) This quote reflects the motive of Brutus for the assassination of his friend, Caesar. I believe Brutus killed him not out of disrespect, but in a selfless act to protect Rome from the decree of Caesar yet to come. I also believe that he did this out of force from the manipulation from his “friend” Cassius. In Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar”, Brutus’ two most significant characteristics are virtue and unconscious hypocrisy. In order to fully understand these characteristics, it is necessary to analyze all other contributing characteristics, the manipulation of friendship that Cassius uses against him, and the motivations for
Rhetorical devices can be seen being used in history, such as William Shakespeare’s dramatic play “Julius Caesar”. In Shakespeare’s play Brutus and Antony conspire to lead a group to assassinate Caesar. Rome is in a panic as they find out that their first emperor Octavian who went by the name Julius Caesar has been stabbed to death. Brutus and Antony in an effort to achieve Rome’s support use rhetorical devices to try to receive support for their actions. You can see how they use ethos, pathos, and logos to eventually achieve their goal of persuading the citizens of Rome.
Greed, ambition, and the possibility of self-gain are always constant in their efforts to influence people’s actions. In Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus, a venerable politician, becomes a victim of the perpetual conflict between power-hungry politicians and ignorant commoners. He is a man of honor and good intentions who sacrifices his own happiness for the benefit of others. Unfortunately, his honor is strung into a fine balance between oblivion and belief and it is ultimately the cause of his downfall. His apparent obliviousness leads him to his grave as his merciful sparing of Mark Antony’s life, much like Julius Caesar’s ghost, comes back to haunt him. Overall, Brutus is an honest, sincere man who holds the lives of others in high regard while he himself acts as a servant to Rome.
If then that friend demands why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. " 3.2.19-24. -. His concentration on honor and nobility ends up being used against him by Cassius, who instigates him to kill his best friend. Cassius knows how naive and how moral Brutus is and he uses this information to help him kill Caesar.
In his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare employs various rhetorical strategies such as direct address, repetition, and apostrophe in Antony’s eulogy to convince the crowd into believing that Caesar was a good ruler. His excellent use of rhetoric begins before he starts his speech through the establishment of familiarity. Before Antony begins his speech, he refers to the crowd as “friends, romans, [and] countrymen” to establish a personal connection, indicating the use of direct address (3.2.82). By referring to the crowd as “friends,” Antony removes any separation between him and the audience, establishing a close bond by choice. As it came first on his list, it emphasizes the importance of his friendship with the audience as friendship implies
Shakespeare’s complex play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar contains several tragic heroes; a tragic hero holds high political or social esteem yet possesses an obvious character flaw. This discernible hubris undoubtedly causes the character’s demise or a severe forfeiture, which forces the character to undergo an unfeigned moment of enlightenment and shear reconciliation. Brutus, one of these tragic heroes, is a devout friend of the great Julius Caesar, that is, until he makes many execrable decisions he will soon regret; he becomes involved in a plot to kill the omniscient ruler of Rome during 44 B.C. After committing the crime, Mark Antony, an avid, passionate follower of Caesar, is left alive under Brutus’s orders to take his revenge on the villains who killed his beloved Caesar. After Antony turns a rioting Rome on him and wages war against him and the conspirators, Brutus falls by his own hand, turning the very sword he slaughtered Caesar with against himself. Brutus is unquestionably the tragic hero in this play because he has an innumerable amount of character flaws, he falls because of these flaws, and then comes to grips with them as he bleeds on the planes of Philippi.
In William Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, two speeches are given to the people of Rome about Caesar's death. In Act 3, Scene 2 of this play Brutus and Antony both try to sway the minds of the Romans toward their views. Brutus tried to make the people believe he killed Caesar for a noble cause. Antony tried to persuade the people that the conspirators committed an act of brutality toward Caesar and were traitors. The effectiveness and ineffectiveness of both Antony's and Brutus's speech to the people are conveyed through tone and rhetorical devices.
Brutus begins his speech using a sentimental tone, talking of how he loved Caesar just as much as anyone present. He then goes on to explain why he conspired against a friend so dear to him. “If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” (79). Here Brutus begins to speak of how Rome is of the highest importance, how the death of Caesar was absolutely necessary, for his ambition would have lead them all to their graves as slaves. Now Brutus seems to go into a logical direction, asking who would rather be a slave, “who is here so rude, that would not be Roman?”(80), ...
In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, persuasion and rhetoric play a crucial role in a myriad of events and outcomes that occur. In Act one Cassius is trying to convince Brutus to turn against Caesar and join the conspiracy. Later, in Act three, Brutus and Antony speak at Caesar’s funeral. Brutus convinces the Roman people that what he and the conspirators did was for the good of Rome. Antony then persuades the plebeians that the conspirators had no reasonable judgement to kill Caesar and that all Caesar’s future plans were to help Rome. Though many characters appear to be rhetorical, Antony could be considered as the most. Persuasion and rhetoric are used throughout Julius Caesar when Cassius is trying to coax Brutus to join the conspiracy, and when Brutus and Antony convince the crowd at Caesar’s funeral.
In the Shakespearean book, Julius Caesar, it can be observed that Julius Caesar’s bloody death caused by the conspirators has not affected Caesar’s domination and significance over Rome and its people. This unceasing reputation causes a great stir in the people of Rome and has a negative impact on his enemies and drives his allies to avenge him and even after his death, Caesar maintains his form of ruling. Caesar’s influence is too powerful to be contained by his death, thus affecting his enemies and allies.