Brutus and Antony Speeches

It is obvious from their first words that Brutus and Antony use different forms of appeal in their funeral speeches. Each technique is used to elicit a different response from the audience in an attempt to persuade them into taking their side. Brutus uses the form of logos to appeal to the audience’s intellect and reasoning. Antony focuses more on the form of pathos to appeal to the audience’s emotions.

Brutus begins his speech by addressing the audience as “Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers,” whereas Antony begins his speech “Friends, Romans, Countrymen!” I think this is the first sign of what is to come in each of their speeches and how they will be different. Brutus’s use of the word “Roman’s” represents his strategy of appealing to the audience’s reason, by defending how Caesar’s death was in the best interest of Rome. This technique allows the audience to look past their emotions and see the logic behind Caesar’s death. Brutus gets the audience to focus on what he portrays as the sensible thing to do by listing reasons as to why Caesar’s death was beneficial.

Antonym’s use of the word “Friends” in his opening line foreshadows that the rest of the speech will focus on eliciting an emotional response from the crowd. He uses reasons that evoke sympathy from the audience toward both Antony and Caesar. He reminds the audience of their love for Caesar and that this love should now be turned into mourning and sorrow. Antony emphasizes Caesar’s good qualities and gets the audience to feel as though Caesar has been wronged. Antony repeatedly refers to emotion eliciting words such as love and weeping to get the audience to feel sorrow for Caesar and forget what Brutus presented as logical.