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 Antonys speech is significantly more effective than Brutuss. Both speakers used an ethical appeal to the crowd and established their credibility first. Brutus starts off by saying he was Caesars friend, and he loved him, but because Ceasar was ambitious he had to slew him. Brutus knew that everyone in town thought he was an honorable man and he used that to establish his credibility, unlike Antony, who was thought to be a play boy, not serious about anything. He had to work harder to gain the crowds attention. The first sentence out of his mouth was that he was here to bury Caesar, not to praise him which is a great way to start since most of the people didnt like Caesar at the time and didnt want to listen to some silly friend of Caesars say wonderful things about him. Antony also mentioned many times that their hero Brutus is an honorable man. This also helped get the crowd to listen to him, because they had just heard Brutus and were all fired up about the wonderful things he had said. So both the characters start off their speeches the same, gaining credibility, but because Antony had to work harder to gain it, he performed much better.The emotional appeal, pathos, is the most used appeal in both the speeches. Brutus used repetition the most to influence the crowd. He states about Caesars tears, love, and ambiti...
