Brutus And Mark Antony Compare And Contrast Speech

Speeches have been known throughout time to have a great influence on mankind and their actions. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. was known for his great and famous speech bringing about hope and a new beginning for people with different skin colours to live in harmony. Then there 's the other side of the spectrum, where the world has some of Adolf Hitler’s speeches: speeches that caused man to do unspeakable things to other fellow members in of mankind. In the play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, two speeches are given by two of some very influential characters.The speeches by Brutus and Mark Antony resemble the examples given above. Both of the men and their speeches can be seen as similar, but they are overall very different.

Both men come from different backgrounds, and they both have different ambitions-different motivations. Only two important things tie them together with the thread of similarity. One is Julius Caesar while the other is the people of Rome. The people look up to both Brutus and Antony, and they trust them, as people can see in two different quotes from Act III, Scene two. “The noble Brutus is ascended: silence! (Act III, Scene 2- line 1544)” A third citizen shouts from the crowd, and in the same scene a same third citizen states, “there’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.(Act III, Scene 2- line 1661)” These quotes show that both Brutus and Antony were trusted by the public, seen as noble, and because of that, they both have two different speeches that led to two different

Yet, in Antony’s speech, he takes a different approach than Brutus. Pathos, otherwise known as emotional appeal, is something Antony uses non-stop in his speech, in which Brutus barely used it at all. Antony opens his speech by addressing everyone as his friends, speaking about how Caesar was an honourable man, an honest man, all he had ever done was for the benefit of Rome. He says in his speech, “You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; and sure he is an honourable man. (Act III, Scene 2- line 1639-1643)” Mark Antony is showing people how great Caesar was, and that he wasn 't ambitious. He repeats the words “Brutus is an honourable man,” over and over again, almost like a mock or a dare. He 's attempting to make the people see that Brutus isn’t honourable, that he killed their leader who they loved, which is not an act one would say about an honourable man. Mark Antony also goes on to slowly convince the people that the conspirators were nothing but murderers. Then he states this, “good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny…(Act III, Scene 2- line 1754-1755) Now Antony has put the idea of mutiny into their heads, using the word ‘mutiny’ in just the right places to cause the people to do exactly that: