Antony effectively uses repetition in his speech. Constantly he mentions Brutus to be an ‘honourable man.’ By repeating Brutus to be honourable, as the plebeians are convinced he is, Antony is able to make it sound worthless as it begins to sound tiresome and so causes the plebeians to question Brutus nobility. Antony also repeats the word ‘ambition’. He reminds the crowd that Brutus said Caesar ‘was ambitious’ and points out to facts to them that contradicts this such as the ‘kingly crown which [Caesar] thrice refuse’ and how Caesar had bought money to the state. To make these facts more effective, Antony rhetorically asks them if this ‘was…ambition’. This as well in reflection, contradictory makes Brutus seems ambitious as he has persuaded the crowd with logic to why he killed Caesar. Subtly Antony is already persuading the plebeians to think towards his point of view by making them feel like an injustice has been done. The rhetorical questions are tricks in order to make the crowd think that, it as though they are deciding whether it is just or not. We also see as well, how Antony is very careful in balancing his repetition of ‘honourable’ men with something positive about Caesar or something negative about his death again in order for them to view that losing Caesar is a negative thing.
Carefully, Antony is able to manipulate the crowd into trying to get him to read Caesar’s will. Here, he starts playing with their emotions in order to simmer enough anger to cause ‘mutiny and rage.’ Cleverly Antony mentions to the crowd that the will favours them though he claims he cannot tell them what is in it. By doing so, Antony is trying to display that he is on Brutus’s side by not “telling” them how much Caesar had loved the Roman people. Not only that, but he manages to insert Cassius’s name to make sure he gets the blame as well.
Antony continues to make his speech effective with the use of imagery in order to evoke sympathy. The first imagery he uses is of his ‘heart [being] in the coffin…with Caesar’. As this imagery invoke sympathy, Antony is trying to convince the plebeians that he is a much more noble man than Brutus and thus win their support. More imagery is used when descends from the pulpit to join the crowd as they create a circle around him. He is careful with his words in order to make the murder sound more violent. He shows the crowd the hole where Brutus ‘plucked his cursed steel away’. Again he also does this to make Brutus seem less honourable. Also by mentioning how Caesar praised Brutus it makes the Caesar’s death more unjust as he was killed by ‘Caesar’s angel’. Emotionally the crowd connects with this and begins to cry.
Once he has them emotionally stirred, Antony uses it as an advantage. Cleverly he uses irony to make the crowd to feel the complete opposite of the words he uses. He mentions to them that he is ‘no orator, as Brutus is’ and he is only ‘a plain blunt man’. Somehow he is able to make himself seem more equal to them and this wins the hearts of the people. Using irony as well he is able to instruct the plebeians to what to do by telling them what not to do. He tops this off by revealing to them Caesar’s speech where the plebeians have plenty to gain. This causes an emotion to explode in them once again as it proves that Caesar was not ambitious but only care much for Rome.
