Rhetorical Analysis Outline Template
Prompt: How does the speaker use rhetorical strategies to advance his rhetorical purpose?
Speaker: Cassius, senator/conspirator
Occasion: Feast of the Lupercal in Rome, on the streets during the festival, Caesar has recently
returned from defeating Pompey and has assumed control of Rome.
Audience: Brutus, senator and friend of Caesar
Subject: Caesar as the single ruler of Rome
Purpose/Mode (identify and define): To persuade Brutus that Caesar’s position of absolute
power is unjust and that he needs to be deposed.
Tone of speaker:
Diction: “petty” “dishonorable” “masters” “shamed” “devil” “only man”
Imagery/figurative language: Caesar compared to Colossus towering over men, Caesar’s name
compared to a weight (no heavier than any other), Wide walls of Rome aren’t just big enough
for one man
Facts: Men control their own destiny, Caesar’s just a man, Rome is great due to many men, not
just one, even Brutus’s own ancestor kicked out tyrant kings.
Tone word(s): belittling and wrathful
I.
Thesis Statement: (should identify speaker, audience, speaker’s tone, and speaker’s
purpose—DO NOT NAME THE DEVICES YOU WILL ANALYZE, JUST MENTION THAT
DEVICES ARE USED). Use the following template: In his/her (tone adjectives)
(form/title of communication), _(the writer/speaker with appositive describing
him/her)__(strong verb) rhetorical devices in order to _(rhetorical mode verb and
intended audience)__ _(writer/speaker’s rhetorical purpose)_.
In his belittling and wrathful speech, Cassius, a senator of Rome, employs rhetorical
devices in order to persuade Brutus, fellow senator and friend of Caesar, that Caesar
needs to be deposed from his position as sole ruler of Rome.
II.
Body Paragraph 1 Focus (list appeals and the focus of the paragraph—aka, the
rhetorical purpose FOR THAT SECTION OF THE SPEECH that the appeals will be
advancing): Caesar’s unjustified belief that he deserves to rule (Pathos and logos)
Detail: Pathos—Colossus (simile) (I, i, 136-138)
Elaboration—context and placement
Commentary—how the device creates meaning and how that meaning connects to
purpose.
Transition:
D: Logos: fault in ourselves (I, i, 140-141)
E:
C: —how the device creates meaning and how that meaning connects to purpose.
Transition:
D: Logos: What should be in that Caesar? (rhetorical questions) (I, i, 141-143)
E:
C: —how the device creates meaning and how that meaning connects to purpose.
III.
B.P. 2 Focus: Action must be taken to depose him as has always been done in Rome
(logos, ethos and pathos)
Detail: Pathos/Logos: “Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed / That he has
grown so great / Age, thou are shamed! / Rome thou hast lost the breed of noble
bloods!” (I, i, 149-151)
Elaboration: towards middle of the speech, Cassius questions what Caesar does
differently to make him so special.
Commentary: appeals to logic that Caesar is just a human, doesn’t deserve his high
station. Appeal to pathos with words like “shamed” and “noble bloods” to create
sense of regret for what Rome has allowed to happen. Justifies purpose that Caesar
must be deposed.
Transition:
D: Logos—“one man” (153, 155 and 157) (repetition)
E: Cassius makes the point that Rome was not built by one man and yet Caesar has
all of the power and is just one man.
C: Uses examples from Rome’s past to prove that Rome was never been a Republic
built around one single dictator. Justifies purpose that Caesar must be deposed.
Transition:
D: Ethos/Pathos: “There was a Brutus once that would have brooked/The eternal
devil to keep his state in Rome / As easily as a king” (I, i, 159-161).
E: Cassius speaks about Brutus’s ancestor who removed the last of the ancient kings
from Rome
C: Cassius establishes his own credibility in calling on the removal of Caesar by
bringing up Brutus’s own ancestor who did the exact same thing. He is also
appealing to Brutus’s pride by mentioning his celebrated ancestor, and he is
establishing credibility for Brutus if he should choose to follow in his ancestor’s
footsteps. Justifies purpose that Caesar must be deposed.
In his belittling and wrathful speech, Cassius, a senator of Rome, employs rhetorical strategies
in order to persuade Brutus, fellow senator and friend of Caesar, that Caesar’s position of
absolute power is unjust and that he needs to be deposed from his position as sole ruler of
Rome.
Cassius begins his speech to Brutus in response to Caesar’s recent defeat of Pompey and
assumption of absolute power in Rome; Cassius appeals to pathos while asserting that Caesar’s
position as ruler of Rome is unjustified. He opens with a simile, claiming that Caesar “doth
bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus” while the rest of the “petty” men walk beneath his
giant legs until they die “dishonor[ably]” (I, i, 135-138). Cassius is referencing a statue of the
Greek god Apollo that apparently was so high ships could sail between the statue’s legs. By
comparing Caesar to a giant statue of a god, he implies that Caesar holds himself to be much
greater than all others, but that greatness is just imaginary, as Cassius has already proven in an
earlier speech to Brutus that Caesar is no god. Cassius appeals to Brutus’s emotions as he
knows that Brutus likely would become angry at the idea of any man seeing himself as a god
towering over everyone else and that he would agree that such a man has no right to be the
leader of a Republic. Cassius then appeals to logos as he begins to develop his argument that
something must be done to remove Caesar by claiming that any man can control his own fate.
He claims: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings”
(I, i, 139-141). Cassius contrasts the common belief that destiny determines a person’s fate with
the idea that people have control over their own destinies. He appeals to Brutus’s logic-driven
mind my mentioning an individual’s ability to assert his own will, and he begins to introduce the
idea to Brutus that if they want to change the direction Rome is going in, toward outright
dictatorship, they must take matters into their own hands and knock down the giant statue that
Caesar has become. Cassius then follows this assertion with an additional appeal to logos with
further evidence that Caesar has no more right to rule than any other man, including Brutus
himself. After speaking Caesar’s and Brutus’s names separately, Cassius employs rhetorical
questions: “What should be in that ‘Caesar’? / Why should that name be sounded more than
yours?” (I, i, 142-143). To paraphrase, he asks Brutus what is so special about Caesar’s name
that is should become set apart from anyone else’s name, as if Caesar’s name itself embodies
Caesar’s unshared power. Cassius’s reason-driven questions reveal his belittling tone, as the
obvious answer is that there is nothing special about Caesar’s name, and so nothing special
about Caesar himself that differentiates himself from other great men, such as Brutus. Cassius
emphasizes the logical point, which he continues to expand upon in the following lines, that
Caesar and Brutus are as equal in person as they are in name. Rome became a Republic for that
very reason—when all men are equal, no one man should have excess power. Cassius has
solidified his claim that Caesar has no right to be set above the rest of Rome’s people, and will
begin to fervently argue that Caesar must be deposed.