Macbath's Soliloquy

A detailed Summary of Macbath's Soliloquy

Shakespeare's use of light and darkness as representations of life and death can be witnessed throughout the entire play of Macbeth. Through the soliloquys of the character's we get an inside look at what they are feeling. Remember that a soliloquy reveals thoughts, intentions, and motives of a character, and they are spoken aloud by the character only when he/she is alone. In Act V, Scene V, Macbeth seems to be immune to the fact that his past actions were slowly creeping back to haunt him. He has worried about it so much throughout the play that all misfortune and frightening events no longer phase him: "Direness...Cannot once start me."(Act V, Scene 5) Upon hearing of the death of his wife, it seems as if he is almost indifferent to it. But then in his soliloquy to follow, we discover Macbeth's true feelings of bitterness and despair. He views not only death as darkness, but life as well. Neither of them have any significance or meaning.

Macbeth uses powerful words to convey his deep thoughts about life to the reader. He starts out by saying, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace" signifying that he believes that t

Macbeth then compares life to a bad actor on the stage, "a poor player" who "struts and frets his hour upon the stage..." He is saying that people live their lives and do a pathetic job at it. They fuss and fret about silly things and are overdramatic. After all of this, the life of a person "is heard no more." It seems as if he is saying that death is almost an escape from the darkness that he blames on the light of life. However, death is just as insignificant as life. He doesn't care anymore. Life is a waste of time. We may not always think of life as a wonderful, beautiful thing all of the time, but when most of us go to bed, we want to wake up in the morning. Most of us view death as dark and tragic! In his mind the themes of light and darkness have reversed, with his "light" being death. Life to Macbeth has just become a horrible (yet blown up) and loud performance, a "tale told by an idiot." When we think of something with "sound and fury," we think of something with a lot of substance and presence. Yet when Macbeth adds all of this up, to him it is "signifying nothing." When times get rough, humans tend to think that life itself is ba

Some common words found in the essay are:
Life Macbeth, Scene Macbeth, , life macbeth, petty pace, life bad, light darkness, compares life, live lives, tomorrow tomorrow, past actions, life death, day day,

Approximate Word count = 782
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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Macbath's Soliloquy

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