Month: November 2016

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

The meaning in this passage is that after Macbeth has found out about the death of his wife he is question the point of life.

The context is that his wife has just died and that an there is an army outside his castle.

“She should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,” This quote shows Macbeth feels that the time of his wife’s death was at a really bad time. You can tell this from when Macbeth says, “there would have been a time for such a word”. Also the metaphor “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” it becomes clear that he feels as if life has now become pointless now that he has found out about the death of his wife. This is shown when Macbeth says that  life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; Macbeth saying that it signifying nothing really shows that.

A feature in this passage that shows Macbeth’s mind deteriorating is that throughout the speech he starts to lose the flow in the rhythm. This is a clear demonstration that Macbeth’s mental state isn’t right. The deterioration of Macbeth’s state of mind is shown in different ways throughout the entire play; in this passage they show it using metaphors and the breakdown of the rhythm, but in other parts of the play they show it and one very good example of this is when Macbeth starts hallucinating before he kills king Duncan and says “is this this a dagger i see before me” when in reality there wasn’t a dagger floating in front of him he was just hallucinating that there was one due to his mind deteriorating over the matter that he has to kill King Duncan.

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MACBETH
Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Exit ServantIs this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings, and wither’d murder,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
A bell ringsI go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Exit
This shows Macbeth seeing the dagger means that he afraid and doesn’t want to kill the King it he also takes it as a sign that he needs to kill the King