Rhetoric Used in Shakespeare and History (Essay Sample)

Speeches are used often throughout history to accomplish many things, however often they are used to persuade people into certain things. These methods of  persuasion can be used in many different forms like metaphors, anaphoras, or any form of ethos, pathos, or logos. Shakespeare uses these rhetorical devices during Antony’s speech in the play Julius Caesar. Antony makes a speech after the death of Caesar in hopes of persuading the people into going against Brutus and the Conspirators, who are the people who killed Caesar. Antony uses many forms of ethos, pathos and logos, as well as some rhetorical devices to convince the people to join his side. Other examples are shown throughout history with the famous speech the “9/11 Address to the Nation '' made by George W. Bush which uses many forms of egos, pathos and logos to help him get his point across to the people. This was after the terrorist attack on the twin towers, and the speech he made was to accomplish many things, like giving a warning to future terrorists, help provide care and comfort for the people and to unite america together. Both Antony and Geroge W. Bush uses ethos, pathos, logos, and rhetorical devices to convince the people into uniting to accomplish a cause or goal.

George W. Bush used many forms of rhetoric and rhetorical devices during his speech about 9/11 to accomplish the goal of uniting the people and to help with the recovery of the United States. He is able to make very effective use of pathos when he said “These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong.” George W. Bush is talking to the people about the plane crashes on the twin towers, and he tells the people that the goal of these attacks were to frighten the nation. He then uses the fright and emotion the people were feeling to turn it into a way of showing the people how strong the U.S. is. He tells the people that the attacks failed in their goal of frightening them and how the country will be strong, uniting the nation under the feeling of the U.S. being able to overcome anything. He also uses more pathos when he says “The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.” He talks about all the people who died because of these attacks, with most of them being innocent people. This gets the audience to feel sad over the deaths of the people and makes them want to help the people affected as they feel sympathy for them and their families. This accomplishes his goal of convincing people to help as they help out of sympathy and unite together to share feelings of sadness. He uses pathos and plays off the emotion of fright and sadness the people were feeling to unite the nation and for them to help him achieve his goal of rebuilding and proving to the terrorists that the U.S. is strong and will not crumble from these attacks.

George W. Bush also uses rhetoric and some rhetorical devices together to unite the people and to get them to help towards his goal. He uses Anaphora while he explains that “Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, D.C. to help with local rescue efforts.” He is appealing to logos by talking about the logical things he is doing to help with the aftermath of attacks. He is sending out people and teams to help the people injured from the attacks while also telling them that the military is ready to stop anymore attacks like this from happening. During this part of the speech he also uses anaphora, to help emphasize the use of “our'' for both the sentences. This is done to tell the people that the military and the rescue efforts aren't just his and things he wanted, he says they're ours, telling the people that these military and rescue efforts are also thiers, so they can feel more connected to the efforts, Through the use of anaphora and logos, he is able to unite the people together with the use of appealing to their logic of helping others and getting ready for another attack, while also emphasizing the importance that it isn’t just him involved with the uniting and rebuilding of the U.S., but it is also up to the people to help rebuild and unite America together, helping him achieve his goal with the use of rhetoric and rhetorical devices.

Rhetoric and rhetorical devices are also used in other speeches, like Antony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. After Brutus and the conspirators killed Caesar, Brutus gave a speech that also used rhetoric, with the people loving Brutus after giving the speech. Because Antony is mad over the death of Caesar, he goes up to the people to say a speech, in hopes of giving a counter-argument to Brutus’ speech and getting the pope to go against Brutus. He makes amazing use of rhetoric and rhetorical examples like when he says

For Brutus is an honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable men—

Come I to speak at Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me.

But Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man. (3.2.81-86)

He uses the rhetorical device antistrophe with his statement of how Brutus is an honorable man. He repeats this phrase many times throughout his speech in hopes to accomplish his goal, to convince the people that Brutus isn’t an honorable man, by using sarcasm and some antithesis. The more he repeats this line, the more the people will realize that Brutus isn’t an honorable man, showing how he uses rhetorical devices to help him prove his point. In the end, he uses these devices and gets his point across to the people, showing how the use of rhetorical devices and rhetoric can help these people convince others to unite to accomplish his goal of going against the conspirators.

Shakespeare also uses rhetoric during Antony’s speech in the form of pathos, by playing on the emotion of the audience when Antony says “When that the poor have cried, Caesar / hath wept” (3.2.90-91). Antony is trying to appeal to emotion by explaining that when the poor people had cried, so did Caesar. This shows the audience that Caesar was a good man, who did thighs out of the good of his heart and not what Brutus said. The people started to feel bad after the death of Caesar when they learned that Caesar was a noble man who helped the poor. Antony also says “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, / And I must pause till it comes back to me. (weeps)”(3.2.105-107). This is also a use of pathos in the form of a dramatic pause while crying to help push the audience into feeling more emotion over the death of Caesar. Overall Antony’s speech is an effective use of pathos by using the emotion he was feeling as well as pushing the audience into feeling emotion so he can unite the people into joining towards his goal, which is to help fight against the Conspirators.

Speeches are used by many people in hopes to convince others to help with a cause or persuade people into doing things. Both history and Shakespeare have been able to show this with George W. Bush’s “9/11 Address to the Nation '', and Antony’s speech in Julius Caesar by Shakespeare. Both speeches are made with a goal in mind, to persuade the audience into uniting together, and for the audience to accomplish a goal that the speaker wants. Bush was able to get the Americans to unite after the attack and for them to get stronger and help others with the recovery. Antony was able to convince the people to unite and go against the conspirators and to help fight in a battle with them. Both speeches are an effective way to show rhetoric and rhetorical devices used to help a speech gain more meaning. Overall both speakers accomplish what they set out to do by the use of rhetoric and rhetorical devices to help them achieve their goal.