Comapring the Speeches of Mark Antony and Brutus in...

Comapring the Speeches of Mark Antony and Brutus in William Shakespeares Julius Caesar The play Julius Caesar reaches a peak of tension at the point of the two speeches, and so it would seem whichever speech was enjoyed more by the crowd would make the speaker the more popular. This was in fact the case in the play. Mark Antony used better techniques of speech than Brutus and he prevailed in the end. After the conspirators have killed Caesar, Brutus agrees to let Antony perform a speech, which Brutus thought would be a eulogy. Antonys speech would be after Brutus and Brutus hoped that the crowd would understand his reasons, though this was secondary to his hope of a better Rome. We know that†¦show more content†¦The crowd look more to his techniques of speech than to his content, as Brutus speaks down to them and speaks in a tone and manner which suggests that he is of a higher intellect than they are, making himself impossible to understand for the largely un-educated crowd. However, while Brutus does talk down to the crowd, he clearly tries to compliment them as he goes along. He says Censure me in your wisdom, implying that the crowd members have wisdom to offer. This would make the crowd like Brutus more, and would be the first part of swaying them onto his side. We also see that Brutus wants, and is, in control of the situation at all times, he says, He comes the body, mourned by Mark Antony as if he was in control of that occurrence. He makes sure it does not appear that anything is happening that he does not want to happen. We see throughout the speech of Brutus the use of rhetoric. He says, Who here is so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him I have offended. I pause for a reply, which of course gets no answer, but gives the crowd time to reflect and think about what he has just said, while at the same time he gets the idea into the heads of the crowd that to go against what Brutus did is a vile act. The two characters giving these speeches use rhetoric often, and this was a useful and powerful technique that Shakespeare would have known