Macbeth - Soliloquy Analysis

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

us to death. When these lines are read together it enables the reader to see the despair and agony Macbeth is now suffering. The past is pushing him ahead and the future is creeping in on him. He has nowhere in time or space to escape. Death is the only place left to go. "Out, out brief candle!" Lady Macbeth's candle has burnt out and soon his will also. Although he talks here about life being light (the candle flame), light is not desirable to him. He wants to extinguish it.
Macbeth is at the point in his life where he is now trapped by his fate. The consequences of his actions have caught up with him. This may very well be why he has such a dreary outlook on life. Life is associated with light but Macbeth is at a state where he sees no significance in having lived. " Life's but a walking shadow." Macbeth is saying here that one's life is dark and dreary, and that the light of life only serves to cast a dark shadow . " [A] poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

that neither life nor death hold any meaning for him, the light becomes darker ( a shadow) and the opposition becomes weaker. His struggle for life ends and he starts to see life and death as a single tone of darkness. We feel his strong emotions, the heaviness of his heart and his sense of despair as he expresses that everything has lost it's light. When the opposition The opposition of light and dark as symbols for life and death is the foundation upon which much of Shakesphere's Macbeth is built. In Act V Scene V of Macbeth, strong words covey all of these thoughts to the reader. The tone for Macbeth's speech is immediately set after hearing of the death of Lady Macbeth. Having lost ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: