How Does Antony Manipulate The Crowd

In the playwright, Julius Caesar, written by William Shakespeare, two of the protagonists in the play take to the public to win over and manipulate the crowd while discussing the major event that had just taken place. Julius Caesar, whom the people wanted to be their king, had just been assassinated by Brutus and the other conspirators, so in a way to try and sate the crowd, Brutus and Antony both gave speeches. However, both speeches were able to influence and gain the support of the crowd in different ways using the common rhetorical strategies, logos, pathos, and ethos, in their speeches. Each character had taken a different approach to convince the crowd and both were successful to a certain degree, nevertheless, Mark Antony had been more …show more content…
This proved to be a mistake on the conspirators part because Antony had been able to change the crowds opinion almost immediately after Brutus had left the scene. Antony had used manipulation techniques along with rhetorical devices in order to draw the crowd in and make them his personal puppets. He had used logos, giving factual information to debunk Brutus’s claims of Caesar’s ambition getting him killed, giving specific examples. “I thrice presented him the kingly crown,/ Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?” (Act 3, Scene 2, p. 47). Along with this, he also revealed Caesar’s will, which stated that Caesar had left money for every person in Rome. He continues to use these examples to make the people question whether or not Caesar really had been as ambitious as they had just been told by Brutus. Throughout the entirety of his speech he continuously asked the crowd questions and allowed them to come to their own conclusions. At the end of his long and drawn out speech Antony was able to turn them against the conspirators which led to the death of Cinna the poet and a fight between Brutus’ and Antony’s