Comparing Mark Antony and Brutus’s speech

In the play ‘Julius Caesar’ the Roman emperor has large ambitions as he wanted to be the ultimate ruler or king. This is the point where twelve conspirators plot to put an end to these mighty ambitions; however, in amongst these conspirators one of his closest friends, Brutus. Brutus agreed with the eradication of Caesar completely, however they all feared Mark Antony, because they knew that he was a true friend of Caesar; therefore Mark feared for his life due to the conspirators. But if he tries to prevent the assassination of Caesar then he knew that he would also ‘disappear’.

When everything had taken place i. e. the assassination Caesar, and Rome found out about this, the two closest to Caesar give speeches to calm them down, Mark Antony and Brutus. I will analyse the way in which they conduct their speeches and then finally compare them. Mark Antony’s speech The very fist thing that we notice about this speech is that he opens with a triple of “Friends, Romans, countrymen” this is effective because it gives the crowd an extra boost of wanting to hear his speech, also it not only does this but also it flatters the audience by relating them to people of Marks friend and companion.

Then directly after this he uses metaphoric questioning of “lend me your ears”, this is good from him because although the people respect him for being a mighty war hero he shows sensitivity by asking and not demanding. In the next line, a contrasting pair of “bury” and “praise”; this is significant because it makes the crowd think. I notice that throughout the speech he uses repetition of “ambitious”, like in his rhetorical question of “was this ambitious”.

This is good because it outstands in the speech as it jumps out at you because of the minds 10 minute memory, where if you here something more than once in 10 minutes it appears bolder than the rest. “for Brutus is an honourable man” this is repeated to show the respect that he has for Brutus although he doesn’t agree also it is opinion stated as fact, however in my opinion it is said in a sarcastic way to subtly hint out that he doesn’t agree with the assassination on Caesar.

Then after this, to hit out again that Caesar was a good man Antony says the words ‘friend’, ‘faithful’ and ‘just’ he says this about Caesar; this in my opinion is showing that he does agree with the conspirators, because he the qualities that Mark expressed about Caesar are good and qualities that a ruler should have to be successful and fair as a ruler. Right after this he says “Brutus is an honourable man”, he also repeats this and this although flattering Brutus it is at the same time ridiculing him, this is because he is over flattering him.

To make the crowd think at the same time as listing to what he has to say, Mark uses rhetorical questions; e. g. “what cause withholds you then, to mourn for him”, this is a trick of the mind because the crowd think that Mark is asking them to mourn for Caesar, however it does not give this effect because Antony is really demanding for the crowd the mourn for Caesar. Also again whilst he asks for their mourning he is flattering, again, Caesar and implying that the conspirators should not have acted in the way that they did, because although Caesar had his bad point the good far outweigh the bad.