Julius Ceasar

In Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar, Calphurnia argues to her husband, Julius, to remain home after she dreamt of his murder. In her argument, Calphurnia uses juxtaposition, personification, and imagery to persuade him. She uses these rhetorical devices well, but was unable to convince him.
Calphurnia used juxtaposition to place a dying man and his neighing horse side by side. A horse grows very accustomed to their master. They are able to know when their master is in pain, is happy, or is in serious trouble. They have great instincts that allow them to understand what is happening around them. By saying that the horse neighed while the dying man groaned, it implies that what she saw must be true because horses instincts rarely betray them. Also, the man must have been murdered since he is groaning; the groaning would have alarmed the horse even more and set off even more red flags in their brain to go crazy.
Personification was used by giving Caesars' wisdom the ability to be consumed by his confidence. This is effective because it points out to Caesar that that he is very smart, but he shouldn't allow his big head to be the reason his life is ended. Caesar knows that he's not loved by everyone. He might even have a thought in the back of his head that maybe some people would want him dead. But his confidence and pride is making it impossible for him to think logically. If he would have just buried his confidence and pride when Calphurnia had warned him, he may not have ended so tragically.
Lastly, Calphurnia used imagery to attempt to persuade Caesar to stay home. In her paragraph explaining her dream, she uses imagery to vividly describe what she saw. From "fierce fiery warriors" and "drizzled blood on the Capitol," her words resonated with darkness. The imagery showed a horrifying scene, which she hoped would scare him from going. When that didn't work, she pleaded with him and asked to stay home to calm her fears. While the imagery works to traumatize the