Julius Caesar vs. President Obama When talking to your audience you want to show them that you care, that you have emotion, and you’re aware of the situations that are going on. In the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare one of the main characters named Mark Antony performs all three of these actions in his speech at Caesars funeral. Similar to Mark Antony President Obama also uses these three tasks in his “We Can Be Better” speech he performed in Tucson, Arizona after a tragic shooting had occurred. These are both two great examples of showing their awareness, emotion, and understanding of what was going on at the time they were performing their speeches.
Showing your audience that you care is a great way to keep them listening and actually caring about what you have to say. When performing big speeches like Mark Antony you want to tell the people things that want to here such as when he told his audience “He was my friend, faithful and just to me… But Brutus says he was ambitious” (Act III, II, 80). The purpose of this was to gain the audiences attention by stating that him and Caesar were friends and Caesar was a faithful man but, Brutus thought something had to be done before Caesar became to ambitious. However President Obama does something similar to this by comforting his audience and showing them his respect. In president Obama’s speech he says “I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today and will stand by you tomorrow” (Obama). He isn’t just trying to bring the citizens of Tucson together as one he is trying to bring the nation together as one and making people realize the tragedy going on in Tucson.
In addition you need to be able to show your emotions to your audience also while performing a speech. President Obama says something during his speech that is very emotional and can make people think positive even if things are as bad as they were. He said, “Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken, and yet our hearts also have reason for fullness” (Obama). Even after this incident that happened President Obama can show two sides of his emotions. Those two things were positive and sad at the same time. In the same way Mark Antony shows his emotions by telling the people of Rome the honest truth of what he thinks about Caesar. Brutus had said Caesar was too ambitious. But Antony told the crowd “I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?” (Act III, II, 95). He attempted to show the crowd that Caesar wasn’t ambitious and was truly a faithful man. However Antony could have just been saying this content to help him become Rome’s next ruler.
The last thing that is important to show to an audience is that you are aware of what is going on. Clearly President Obama was aware of what was going on but was Antony? Obama talks
