Macbeth monologue7/6/2023 ![]() He clings onto his faith in the prophecies, but is eventually undone. To maintain his power he must kill many more and is eventually overcome by guilt and fear. Macbeth murders the King and takes the crown. He is told a prophecy by a group of witches that he will one day be King, and encouraged by his wife, he decides to take action. Macbeth is a Thane and has so far proved a brave and loyal servant to the King. He has just won an important battle for King Duncan. ![]() You simply have to read the play.Īt the start of the play we see Macbeth on the battle field. Understanding the play is vital to understanding the monologue. We always begin our monologues unpacked by working out the broader story we are trying to tell. To let go of the notions we have about who Macbeth is and find the humanity in him. The struggle always with these well known Shakespeare monologues is to avoid mimicking other performances. Finding the universality of this monologue is the best way to approach it. ![]() We understand what it is to want something, whilst still feeling like we can’t be dishonourable or disloyal. Hopefully most of us haven’t ever considered murdering our way to the top, but we can recognise this familiar struggle with our ambition. Macbeth is dealing with the internal conflict of whether to follow his ambition or to remain loyal. We see a man struggling with his conscience. It displays his poetic genius in lines like “Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, that tears shall drown the wind.”, whilst also showing his is uncanny humanity. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.This well known monologue from Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s finest. The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. It is part of the power of this speech that Macbeth’s language conveys his disordered mental state, the fact that he is overcome by the pointlessness of his whole endeavour, and – because he cannot escape his own mind – of life itself. In Macbeth’s phrase, ‘sound and fury’ are not two distinct phenomena, but more intimately joined: what ‘sound and fury’ means here is something like ‘furious sound’. ![]() These two substantives are joined by the word ‘and’. ‘Sound and fury’ is a more interesting phrase than it first appears: it’s an example of hendiadys, a curious literary device whereby one idea is expressed by two ‘substantives’ (specifically, nouns or adjectives). In short, what is the point of anything, when a man’s life appears to achieve nothing? Duncan is dead Banquo is dead Lady Macbeth is dead and Macbeth seems ready for his own death, now all appears lost. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Ĭontinuing the idea of life as an actor upon a stage for an hour only, Macbeth develops this, thinking about plays, illusion, stories, and fictions: life is like a story, but a bad story, told by someone too stupid and blustering to say anything of significance. He then likens life to an actor who comes out onto the stage, struts his stuff, says his lines for an ‘hour’, and then disappears again. Life is like a candle which burns for a short while only, so Macbeth argues that it should just be put out, since it will soon be ‘out’ anyway. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, ![]() More alliteration, with dusty death inviting the actor playing Macbeth to highlight and emphasise the harsh d sounds. In other words, until the very end of the world, the apocalypse, where all time ceases to be.Īnd all our yesterdays have lighted foolsĪnd every day that has already occurred in the past has only brought fools one day closer to their deaths. ![]()
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