Julius Caesar Rhetorical Analysis

1276 Words3 Pages

Megan Phan
Sutton Pd. 5
Pre-AP English 10
17 May 2018
The Power of Persuasion The murder of Julius Caesar is not only a turning point in history, but it is also a turning point in William Shakespeare’s play. This play features members of Roman society persuading one another to succeed in their own end goals, despite how life-threatening these goals may be. To accomplish these goals, the characters had to employ various rhetorical devices. In the play, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare suggests that rhetoric has the capability to influence change in the opinions within reality. This relationship between rhetoric and reality is reinforced by the close examination of Cassius’ encouragement speech, Antony’s funeral speech, and Cassius’ argumentative …show more content…

In his argument, Cassius reminisces on a memory of him and Caesar swimming in a river. Before reaching their determined destination, “With lusty sinews, throwing it aside / And stemming it with hearts of controversy. / But ere we could arrive the point proposed, / Caesar cried, ‘Help me Cassius, or I sink!’” (I.ii.115-118). Though Cassius is just mentioning that he had to save Caesar from drowning, Cassius is using ad hominem to allude to the fact that Caesar is weak and unfit for the crown. Cassius depicts this by only highlighting the portions of the story line where Caesar is seen as being cowardly. In his encouragement speech, Cassius does mention Caesar and Cassius as “throwing [the waves] aside / And stemming it with hearts of controversy”. This does describe how both Caesar and Cassius fought hard against the roaring water and mention their competitiveness; however, it focuses more on how both of them are like that and how not just Caesar exhibits these traits. To add on to this point, Cassius even (mentions) Caesar’s cry –– “‘Help me Cassius, or I sink’”. Cassius is doing this to attack Caesar’s character. He is successful as this allows Brutus to think about Caesar from the same perspective as Cassius. Cassius drives his point forward as he proceeds to describe how Caesar has “now become a god, and Cassius is / A wretched creature and

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