Julius Caesar Rhetorical Analysis

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In the Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, there are many types of conflict, persuasion, betrayal, and most importantly emotion. Rhetoric plays an important role in this story by letting the characters communicate in a persuasive way. Pathos is used the strongest by two of the main characters, Brutus and Antony. Emotion played an important role because Brutus and Antony both knew the crowd would act upon their feelings. Brutus and Antony used different styles of pathos when they spoke at Caesar's funeral to try and persuade the crowd to be on their side. The speakers used many different forms of emotion in their speeches, which proves that they used a strong sense of pathos as their rhetorical appeal. During the course of the play Brutus gave a speech at Caesar's funeral, and he used a strong sense of emotion and control. Brutus not only had feelings toward himself, but also toward Caesar and even more toward Rome. In James A. Herrick's book, The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An …show more content…

Antony knew that the people of Rome had respect and love for Caesar and would do anything for remembrance of him. After Caesar's will was read, the crowd would, "go and kiss dead Caesars wounds, And dip their napkins in his sacred blood"(Shakespeare 827). This made the crowd see that Caesar was an important person and they lost someone very superior to Rome. In James A. Herrick's book, The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction, he states, "In rhetoric we find people acting symbolically in response to their motives, a general term in taking commitments, goals, desires, or purposes that lead to action"(Herrick 10). Antony had strong motivation to let the crowd know of Caesar's worth. The people of Rome realized that they needed Caesar, and Antony got the people of Rome to turn against the conspirators in response to his

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