Master orators are people who can envelope crowds of people with their passages of perfectly chosen words woven together to move anyone through the usage of ethos, pathos, and/ or logos while simultaneously being the most unsuspicious man who no one thinks much of. Mark Antony of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a perfect candidate for a master orator. To understand why, the knowledge of the goings on of the Shakespearean play is necessary. Within the boundaries of this play, Julius Caesar has recently returned from another conquest. Conspirators against Caesar planned to kill him for mostly selfish reasons of jealousy and hatred under the preface of killing a possible tyrant. Once these conspirators finally get their plan and allies together, …show more content…
they each stab into Caesar once, killing him the morning he was to be crowned king. Mark Antony sees this, and asks to give and speak at Caesar’s funeral. The conspirators grant him the ability to, and make him keep three promises. Until now, Antony had been a very docile character. He only came up for a few lines, and usually only spoke to Caesar, being unsuspicious, but during his speech at the funeral, Antony shows his ability to be an orator. Antony correctly and skillfully uses different forms of rhetoric to sway the feelings of the crowd he speaks to, and makes them riot against the conspirators by the end of his words. During his speech, Antony says that he is there to “bury Caesar, not to praise him” (III.ii.71). This line shows Antony’s intent for his speech. It is to show the crowd who Ceasar was. It was not to fulfill his promises to Brutus. His promises being that he, Antony, would only speak good of Caesar, following, he could not speak ill of the conspirators, and finally Antony must tell the crowd that the conspirators let him speak. However, Antony instantly starts his speech by saying he will not follow through with this agreement. Mark Antony instead speaks at the funeral in order to seek vengeance on the conspirators for their deed, and plans to use the people to do so. The problem here however is that Antony is under hostile circumstances. For moments before Antony steps forward to the people, Brutus sways the crowd of people with his tale of Caesar becoming a tyrant, and his slaying of the man was all for the good he believed it was. This riled the crowd in admiration for Brutus, the man who would love Rome over his friend so far, he’d kill the friend for Rome. This meant Mark Antony, the last friend of Caesar an enemy in their eyes. Antony was the last reminder of the “tyrant,” and was thus the focal point for the crowd’s unfounded hate for Caesar. Yet still Antony spoke. He spoke and moved, and awed, and made the crowd his. Mark Antony’s sublime rhetoric allowed him to turn the tragedy of Julius Caesar into his foundation for engulfing the crowd of people into a vengeful fury against the conspirators of Rome. In the beginning of his speech, Antony first attempts to appeal to the logos of the crowd.
He gives them facts that they cannot dispute. He retells about how Caesar has “brought many captives home to Rome,/ Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill,” or that Caesar wept when the poor cried, but an ambitious man would be made of “sterner stuff” (III.ii.86-87 & 89). Antony then also used pathos within this section, to weaken the hold of Brutus’ words. Telling the people of how Caesar was always “faithful and just” to him (III.ii.82). Of how Caesar himself “wept” when his people cried (III.ii.88). Following even this, Antony shifted to using pathos. He spoke of how the crowd used to love Caesar like no other, and they loved the man with good reason, yet now they hate the man without reason. And that unjust loss of love to such a man was too much. It killed his heart. Hurt him more than any wound. Such is the thoughts behind the line of “bear with me,/ My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar “ (III.ii.102-103). To his respect, it worked as well as Antony spoke. The crowd began to question Brutus. Questioning whether he was true about the ambitions of Caesar. True about there being no reason to mourn him. The crowd was with Antony for his thoughts, and for the pain he suffered. For the fact that Antony is speaking to the crowd not moments after the death of his dearest friend shows the crowd how much Antony hurts. This sympathetic connection helps strengthen the affects of …show more content…
his rhetoric later as well. As Mark Antony begins moving into the next phase of his speech, he changes the tactics of which his words form. As of III.ii.115, Antony begins talking about doing wrong by people. Up to this point, Antony always accompanied Caesar’s ambition with Brutus and the other conspirators being honorable. This time, however, he ties in Brutus’ honorability with stirring the crowd to mutiny and rage. Saying that doing so would wrong honorable men and Antony would much more want to “wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,/ Than I will such honorable men” (III.ii.123-124). This showed the crowd type of man Antony is. A man who would rather do wrong by himself than wrong the just. As stated earlier, Antony at this moment holds a sympathetic connection to the crowd. This connection showing that even in tremendous emotional pain, Antony still chooses to inflict more onto himself than to do anything to just men. However, he then continues to say that he holds Caesar’s will and the contents of such will shall force the crowd into riot and revolt, for Caesar’s generosity in the will would show his lack of ambition, and thus wrong such honorable men. The crowd respond to this news in a frenzy. They tell Antony they will hear the will. They want to know what is was Caesar did for them. Antony then begins to entice the idea of the will upon the crowd. He hints that such words will enrage them against honorable men. That he cannot permit himself to do such actions, for their consequences will be heated. The crowd gets more and more impatient for the will, and eventually beg to hear it. Antony then uses this need for satisfaction to turn the crowd once and for all, but not before enticing rage into them. Antony uses the will as great leverage to keep the crowd listening, while also filling their heads with hate and mutiny. As he talks, Antony finds his cleverly placed words are working. He decides to use the thought of Caesar’s will to keep the crowd of people listening, but he waits. Holding onto the will, and thus holding onto the lid of this boiling pot of emotions he’s been stirring up. As Antony continues his speech in line 166, Act III, scene ii, he decides to appeal once more to the strong sympathetic bond of pathos he’s been cultivating this whole time. Making the crowd anticipate their tears, and for those who “have tears, prepare to shed them now” (III.ii.166). Antony directs the crowd to feel their sympathy and anticipate sorrow, thus making the sorrow he shows have a harder impact. Telling the crowd of the first time he saw Caesar in the mantle from which his soul departed. It was the “day he overcame the Nervii,” reminding the crowd of the reason they loved him so (III.ii.170). Antony then continues in this section of his speech to use pathos in order to fully gain the support of the whole crowd. He begins to talk about Caesar’s body, and about each person who made a wound in Caesar. Emphasizing each wound and using loaded words such as “in this place ran Cassius’ dagger,” (III.ii.171), or “See what a rent the envious Casca made,” (III.ii.172), finally finishing with Brutus’ stab wound. Antony decided, however, to linger on this wound in particular. He spoke of how Brutus’ wound was dug into Caesar’s flesh with more strength than “traitor’s arms” (III.ii.182). At this point, Antony stops using the word honorable when speaking of Brutus and the other conspirators, but instead uses traitor and other related words. This change of word association allowed for the image of Brutus, the leader and much loved man, to be tainted. Leaving any lingering love the people had for Brutus to be destroyed. As Antony repeats the words of traitor with Brutus, the political control the conspirators had hoped for slowly falls out of place, and is replaced by Antony’s rule. Antony, who slowly turned this whole situation onto his side. The final straw being the revealing of Caesar’s mangled body. Covered in stab wounds and blood, this sight is the turning point for the crowd. Filled with rage for the now unjust killing of Julius Caesar, yet Antony still has his trump card, or trump will in this instance. In his final passage, Antony unleashes the boiling emotions he has been slowly stirring and preparing to unleash upon the conspirators.
Antony begins by using the rhetoric strategy of using negative words before their actual point. By using the negative word, such as not or no, Antony actually emphasizes his true intentions while sounding like he’s abiding to the promises. Such lines using this are “let me not stir you up/ To such a sudden flood of mutiny” (III.ii.206-207). This line itself is heard in the crowd’s mind as “let me stir you up to a flood of mutiny.” The actual word “not” isn’t registered as well in the brain, and is thus ignored when registering what was said. Now the actual words he said abided to the promises he said, but the message heard was very manipulative. Antony then continues, saying how he is not an orator such as Brutus, or he cannot make any man’s blood boil by his words alone, for he is but a blunt man who speaks the truth. The saying of him being a blunt man though actually cements his rhetoric into the minds of all. By saying he only speaks blunt truth, the crowd now takes all he has and will say as truth, Believing all Antony says because of both the strengthening sympathetic bond and newly founded sayer-of -truthness. Once Antony was done laying the groundwork for their complete trust in him, Antony pulls the restraint off of the crowd’s emotions by reading the will. Becoming able to now direct and fuel the growing rage in the crowd. These
attempts, successful attempts, at making the people listen to him and follow him, meticulously being set from the very first word uttered by this unsuspicious man was perfectly timed and used force the people into seeing his way and following him. A great orator is truly the only way to describe the character of Mark Antony. An orator being someone who can move any man with his powerful words while also not being obvious in his trying to sway thinking. Mark Antony, the most underrated and unsuspicious character of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar was in fact the most dangerous and powerful character there was. By being able to stay unsuspicious and yet have the ability to sway the hearts of crowds, truly makes Mark Antony a very scary Roman, and any others with such ability being scary people. For all who can use rhetoric, can bend the whim of words to their desire and thus bend the thoughts and thus whim of people to their liking. Making rhetoric the closest thing to a superpower we have, and Antony was one real supervillain.
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
Antony asks rhetorical questions and lets the audience answer for themselves. Brutus uses ethos by stating that he a noble man and that is why the people should believe him but infact Antony questions his nobility by saying what Brutus said,” Brutus is an honourable man”(III.ii.79). In a way, Antony states what Brutus states to convince the audience by using examples that Brutus is wrong. Antony himself knows what kind of man Brutus is but lets the people figure it out on their own. In addition, Brutus uses logos by expressing that fact that Caesar died because of his ambition. This argument is severely under supported because his reasons are invalid and simply observations. Antony uses “did this in Caesar seem ambitious” to question Brutus’ argument (III.ii.82). Antony gives examples backing his argument like when Caesar refused the crown thrice to prove his humbleness. The way Antony convinces the people to rebel is by using pathos. He brings the audience in by stepping down to their level and showing them the body of Caesar. While Antony talks at Caesar's funeral, he pauses because” heart us in the coffin there with Caesar “(III.ii.98). When Antony becomes emotional, he reminds the audience about what injust event happened to the much loved
He wants them to revolt but he says he doesn't, he is getting the people to do what he wants. “ which pardon me, I do not mean to read/ and they would go and kiss caesar's wounds.” It's showing that Caesar's will is meant for the people and Mark Antony is saying that they would love him if they heard it and would love him so much as to kiss his wounds. Antony uses reverse psychology to get the people to do what he wants without the realizing it. He uses irony to prove that Brutus cannot be
The most predominate and important aspect In the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare are the speeches given to the Roman citizens by Brutus and Antony, the two main charaters, following the death of Caesar. Brutus and Antony both spoke to the crowd,using the same rhetorical devices to express their thoughts. Both speakers used the three classical appeals employed in the speeches: ethos, which is an appeal to credibility; pathos, which is an appeal to the emotion of the audience; and logos, which is an appeal to the content and arrangement of the argument itself. Even though both speeches have the same structure Antony’s speech is significantly more effective than Brutus’s.
He carried carried out Caesar’s corpse and laid him down before the crowd as he began to speak. Antony has already used pathos as a strong rhetorical device. The sight of a dead body has brought a very serious and saddening atmosphere upon all onlookers. Antony begins by stating “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar.” (3.2.2) Explaining to the crowd that he is not going to praise Caesar for the man he was but rather respectively bury him for his funeral has established that he isn’t biased. Conveying that man's good deeds are often forgotten with death has stirred up a feeling of remorse towards Caesar; another usage of
Firstly, Antony says a general statement that, “the evil that men do lives after them” (III.ii.74), when in fact he is subtly and sneeringly referring to the conspirators actions. The Roman commoners don’t realize that this general statement is swaying them, but the rest of Antony’s speech further convinces them of the evil the conspirators have done. Later, Antony talks about Brutus says that “sure, [he] is an honourable man” (III.ii.98), emphasis on the sure. Because he uses a scornful tone while sarcastically saying this statement, he is really beginning to show the audience his true feelings on the situation. Knowing that even Antony bitterly disagrees with the choices of the conspirators, it further persuades the common people of Rome to turn against Brutus and the rest of Caesar’s murderers. These occasions show Antony’s sour tone, especially towards the conspirators, and Antony’s tone also riles up the Roman citizens. His tone helps to exasperate the commoners with Caesar’s murder, and therefore assists Antony in achieving his purpose to manipulate the audience to turn against
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
& respects the intelligence of the common people to understand a speech given in verse. Brutus's authoritative air is once again illustrated at the very opening line of his oration when he demands the attention of the people, "Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my / cause, and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me / for mine honor and have respect to mine honor, that / you may believe"(Act III, scene ii, lines 13-16). this one line, Antony uses Brutus's words to his advantage by changing them to make himself sound friendlier. By the very first word of Antony's speech, one can infer that he is about to give a humbling oration; he uses the ethical appeal to convince the people to believe in his cause rather than Brutus's. Finally, while the crowd is in awe of Brutus's raw power and booming authority, Antony uses sarcasm He is "an honorable man" (Act III, scene II, line 84) in a tone of biting mockery, therefore questioning Brutus's credibility. & nbsp; It is true that the Roman people have emotions that sway with the winds, but this is partly due to the great speaking skills of both Brutus and Mark Antony.
To start off, for Mark Antony to fully manipulate the audience into supporting Caesar, he must first be able to connect with his audience. Antony does exactly
The crowd responds to show what is going on. Antony then responds by reading off of the will of Caesar to gain the attention of the crowd. He is delivering the speech only because he wants to address his feelings and thoughts on Caesar’s death and how he feels about the conspirators. Antony is trying to persuade the crowd to see what he sees and feel how he feels about the whole ordeal. The crowd, of course, is easily moved and persuaded by Antony’s
Secondly, Antony says to the plebeians, “For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, / Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech / To stir men’s blood.” (3.2.233-235). Antony undersells himself with these words and claims that he is not intelligent enough to form an argument against the conspirators because of the conspiracy’s prior belief that he is just a party-goer that could not fight back against injustices. In reality, Antony knows that he is a great speaker but he instead brings attention to the fact that he is falsely seen as an irresponsible drunkard that could never do any harm. Another technique Antony uses to persuade the Romans to side with him is the use of props. First, Antony displays Caesar’s will to show the crowd his generosity and thoughtfulness for the well-being of Rome. For example, Antony reads “To every Roman citizen he gives, / To every several man, seventy-five
“Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare is the story of the assassination of Julius Caesar. Two speeches were made after his death, one being by Mark Antony. He uses many rhetorical devices in this speech to counter the previous speech and persuade the crowd that the conspirators who killed Caesar were wrong. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion and these many devices strengthen this by making points and highlighting flaws. Antony uses many rhetorical devices, all of which are used to persuade the crowd that the conspirators are wrong and Caesar did not need to be killed.
Antony says to the crowd, “You all did love him once, not without cause: what cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? O Judgement!” (III, ii, 103-105). He is pulling in the emotions that the crowd had, and even has for Caesar by making them question their faith. “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,, and I must pause till it comes back to me.” Antony says this by using his emotion once again by showing his honesty and loyalty to Caesar regardless of everything happening. He knew the right buttons to push from the crowd. When Antony says, “Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man” (III, ii, lines 87 & 88) several times, this is where it really sinks into the crowd. By his use of repetition, it shows that he does not have to directly argue against, or attack Brutus. It allows the audience to understand what he actually means throughout his whole speech. This is that Brutus is in fact wrong, and makes everyone question, is Brutus even honorable? The side agreeing that Brutus holds the stronger speech could say that he says everything out of honor and shows his claim of Caesar being ambitious. As well, they could say that people even agreed with him. The truth is, he cannot use his “honor” as a reason for his belief, when it is in question. Also, he has no proof on why Caesar is “ambitious”, and he ended his speech with a verbal attack on the crowd
Mark Antony's Speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Mark Antony’s funeral oration over the body of Julius Caesar in act three, scene two is the most important speech in the play and effects the development of the play as a whole in many ways. Firstly this speech falls in the play where we have seen Antony’s distraught reaction to the murder of Caesar and his letter vowing allegiance to Brutus in return for being able to live. Act three, scene one prepares us for Antony’s rhetoric as here he states that ‘Brutus is noble, wise, valiant and honest’ which fits in with him repeatedly stating ‘Brutus is an honourable man’. It becomes evident in this scene that Antony has an ulterior motive for forming this allegiance and asking to do the funeral oration when he is ‘swayed from the point by looking down on Caesar’ and then states that ‘friends am I with you all, and love you all’ but still wants to know ‘why and wherein Caesar was dangerous’. Thus we the audience are aware that Antony is not being honest with the conspirators especially when he speaks in a soliloquy of the anarchy he will create when he states ‘blood and destruction shall be so in use…that mothers shall but smile when they behold/
Actions at some moments in Julius Caesar speak louder than words. A prime example is when Cassius wants the men to make a pact to follow through with the murder, but Brutus speaks up and says that the pact is unnecessary. Brutus feels as though every man is a true Roman and each man is as trustworthy and noble as he. As for Antony's speech, this is a whole different story. The words Antony spoke to the public helped motivate the people to go against the conspirators. Thought the action of killing Caesar was a publicized one, Antony's speech was far from being unnoticed.