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Marc Antony Rhetorical Analysis

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Marc Antony’s eulogy wins the heart of his fellow Romans by undermining and destroying the conspiracy. The conspirators claim that it was necessary for the good of the republic to murder Caesar and convince the crowds of Romans to believe so. After he wins over the crowd, Brutus, a conspirator, allows Marc Antony to speak considering him as no threat to the conspiracy. However, Brutus is proven wrong when Antony’s oration manipulates the crowd into a mob thirsty for the blood of the conspirators. Marc Antony’s eulogy is more compelling to the crowd with his use of rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos, and logos, compared to Brutus in the tragedy, Julius Caesar. Introducing his points, Marc Antony begins with the rhetorical appeal ethos, the appeal to ethics, convincing the crowd that Brutus and the conspirators are liars. In discrediting the conspirators, Antony calls upon his authority compared to that of the conspirators. Antony claims the right to speak because Caesar was his “friend, faithful and just to” (III.ii.84) him. Consequently, by calling …show more content…

Brutus misjudges and underestimates Antony’s abilities and his audience. When giving his speech, Brutus makes the subject on honor and abstract ideas using logos and ethos but no pathos. The mistake that Brutus makes is that he does not appeal to the crowd’s strong feelings over the death of Julius Caesar. Meanwhile, Antony easily overmatches Brutus because he does not overestimate his audience. Understanding the people, Antony begins in his eulogy appealing to the citizen’s feelings. Because of the lack of emotion in Brutus’s speech, Antony’s highly emotional and extemporaneous speech captures the minds and hearts of the crowd through use of pathos and causes them to become an angry mob that sought to scorn those that took part in the murder of

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