Throughout his speech Brutus uses lots of Rhetorical questions for instance ‘who is here so vile, that will not love his country?’ no one could say ‘me’ as this means two things that you are vile and that you don’t love your country which both might be untrue. So if you don’t agree with Brutus killing Caesar you couldn’t say anything because of the way he asks the question. Brutus knows this he is so confident that no one will say anything he says ‘ I pause for a reply’ and of course there is none.
Brutus is quite intelligent so he understand what the crowd wants to hear also he knows that the way he says thing will also make an effect on the crowd. So he decides to talk in prose instead of blank verse, the plebeians talk in prose so he thinks he will relate to them more. Where he stands is also significant he stands higher than the crowd showing his importance. So while he is trying to appeal more to the crowd he wants them to know how important he is.
Antony is a very clever man he knows that he has got to approach the crowd carefully he has to do something dramatic to get the crowds attention but nothing that will turn the crowd against him. He makes a very powerful entrance, he interrupts Brutus and he is carrying Caesars body in his hands straight away this attracts the attention of the crowd. Antony will have been listening to Brutus’s speech and will know how easy the crowd where to persuade the first time but he knows that it might be a bit harder as the crowd have made up their mind about Brutus he now has the job of trying to sway them onto his side. Also he has to do this without making it obvious he is saying bad things about Brutus.
Antony is smart and doesn’t just walk out and say Brutus was wrong to do what he did because …he first tries to get the crowd to like him so then whatever he says the crowd will be more likely to listen to him and eventually believe him. The first thing Antony says is ‘You gentle Romans’ so straight away he is complementing the crowd saying they are gentle which really isn’t rue as they are shouting but he knows that this is what the crowd want to hear. At the beginning of the speech he says ‘ I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him’ he says this because at that moment the crowd are pleased that Caesar is dead and will not want to hear him praised which is what they think Antony will do. He goes on to say ‘the evil that men do lives after them’ he is meant to be talking about Caesar here but I think he is really saying it about Brutus. The crowds will just think that he is talking about Caesar maybe the audience watching the play may pick up on this, so they will start thinking that maybe he hasn’t just come here to bury Caesar.
Antony now starts saying about Brutus being a honourable man just to make sure Brutus doesn’t think he is saying anything against him. He then says ‘Brutus says he was ambitions, and Brutus is an honourable man’ observe that he doesn’t say he agrees with Brutus only that that is what Brutus thinks. He makes sure that the crowd know that Brutus has said that Caesar was ambitious because he then says ‘I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?’ he is questioning what Brutus says he is reminding the crowd that Caesar was offered the crown three times but three times he refused it so how could he be ambitious. So is Brutus lying by saying Caesar was too ambitious and if so then why kill him.
Antony also reminds the plebeians of al the good things Caesar has done for them and how much they once loved him for example ‘he brought many captives home to Rome’ and ‘ you all did love him once’ he is reminding them of the love they did had for Cesar hoping that it will make them once again love him and hopefully make them turn on Brutus. He is making them feel guilty for betraying Caesar.
Through out the speech Antony calls Brutus a honourable man ten times. It might seem like a complement to them but really he is saying are they really such honourable men. ‘Brutus says he was ambitious and Brutus is an honourable man’ Anthony says this three times he then tells the crowd that Antony couldn’t have been ambitious because he refuses the crown. So even though it sounds like he is praising them he is really telling the plebeians that Brutus was wrong and had no reason to kill Caesar.
Antony wants to show the crowd just how much Caesars death had upset him and so he says ‘my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar and I must pause till it come back to me’ at this point he turns away from the crowd and pretends to cry. This not only makes the crowd feel bad and upset for Anthony but gives them a chance to take in what Anthony is saying and talk amongst themselves to see what others think. Anthony may be upset about Caesars death but is play acting a bit here he knows what affect this will have on the crowd. At this point most of the crowd are on Anthony’s side you can tell because they are saying things like ‘Methinks there is much reason in his saying’ and ‘there’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.’ So Antony’s speech is winning the crowd over.
Then Caesar cunningly brings up mutiny he says ‘O masters! If I were disposed to stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage’ he is saying that he would feel terrible if it where he who brought up this idea of mutiny, but really he is putting the idea into their heads. There as no mention of any civil disorder or riots until Antony’s mentioned it. At this point he again mentions the fact that Brutus and the conspirators are honourable men and he says ‘I will not do them wrong; I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you than I will wrong such honourable men.’ He’s telling them that he would do nothing that will bring any harm to them but of course he is lying and this is exactly what he wants to do.
Then Antony’s brings up Caesars will he pretends to do it by accident but of course it is on purpose. It instantly gets the crowd even more interested and when Antony says that if only they could read it ‘they would kiss dead Caesars wounds and dip their napkins in his sacred blood.’ He then puts the will away he does this to keep them interested and he goes on to explain the killing.
Antony says ‘I fear I wrong the honourable men whose daggers have stabbed Caesar; I do fear it’ again he is saying they are honourable men but then questioning it by saying whose daggers stabbed Caesar. He could have just said who killed Caesar but he wants it to be more graphic and ‘stabbed’ sounds gorier and as if it was done with hatred.
The plebeians just want to hear the will and shout for Antony to read it because Antony doesn’t want to upset the crowd he tells them ‘you will compel me then to read the will? Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar’ at this point he invites the crowd up to the same level as him as he was standing above them. He is doing this to show that they are just as important as he is. He wants to appeal more to the crowd and show them he is just like them.
In the next part of the speech Antony uses lots of emotional language he says ‘if you have tears, prepare to shed them now.’ He is telling them that what he is about to say will be upsetting which will make them want to listen even more. He then shows them Caesars cloak and shows the crowd each place he was stabbed and who done it. For example he says ‘in this place ran Cassius’ dagger though’, ‘see what a rent envious Casca made, through this well-beloved Brutus stabbed’ he describes each wound and person in great detail letting the crowd know exactly how Caesar was killed. A lot of the crowd won’t of thought about the actual killing just the fact that Caesar was dead. Now they are getting told exactly how it happening they are thinking could such honourable men kill their best friend this way. Antony goes on to say ‘this was the most unkindest cut of all’ pointing to the place where Brutus had stabbed him and Cesar had seen him do it which he says ‘burst his mighty heart’ this is telling the crowd how much Caesar thought of Brutus and it was the thought of his best friend being a traitor to him that killed him not the actual stabbing. The way Antony describes things is very clever he makes everything sound so cold and shocking for the crowd. An example of this is ‘plucked his cursed steel away’ he is describing a dagger he calls it cursed steel which sounds much worse saying it is cursed which can only do wrong.
Antony then pulls the cloak from Caesar revealing his body. The crowd have an angry reaction to this towards Brutus and the other conspirators when they see he wounds they caused they say thing like ‘O traitors! Villains!’ and ‘Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let not a traitor live’ obviously this had had the right effect on the crowd as it has not only turned them against the conspirators but now they want them killed. But still Antony says they are honourable men and goes on to praise them by saying ‘they are wise and honourable’ and ‘I am no orator, as Brutus is’ which is another lie. He is putting himself down here making the crowd feel even more sorry for him another quotation to show this is ‘as you know me all, a plain blunt man’, ‘I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men’s blood; I only speak right on.’ He is telling the crowd that he is not a very good public speaking and can’t stir up men’s blood and that the only way he speaks is by telling the truth, which are all lies he is clearly a better orator than Brutus as the crowd are on his side.
Again Antony cleverly brings up mutiny he says if he were Brutus and Brutus were Antony then he would be sure that ‘Rome would rise to mutiny’. He is very careful not to say that is what he thinks should happen but of course the crowd get the idea into their heads and shout for mutiny. Just when the plebeians are about to riot Antony brings up the will and he tells them that ‘to every Roman Citizen he gives, to every several man, seventy-five drachmas.’ Caesar has purposely left this piece of news till last as he know it will make the crowd even more angry and feel ashamed for going on Brutus’s side.