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Soliloquies Essay - A Powerful Soliloquy in Macbeth

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A Powerful Soliloquy in Macbeth The play ‘Macbeth’ uses soliloquies with great effect to express the thoughts of individual characters, particularly in the case of the protagonist, Macbeth. In Act V Scene V, strong words from Macbeth convey to the reader two themes of the play. This soliloquy demonstrates the play's use of irony and the use of the disparity between the great opposition of light and darkness as symbols for both life and death. This soliloquy is quite significant to the play as a whole since it demonstrates two very important themes as well as leading to a better understanding of Macbeth. Macbeth is talking to an officer, when hearing of his wife's demise his mood suddenly deepens into that of emptiness. He …show more content…

A poor player represents an actor filled with appearances rather than truth. He has strutted through life shows, one that is falsely proud of stolen power. He is an idiot describing a man who has gone mad; he is full of sound and fury thus representing the chaos of his life. Finally, life signifying nothing, represents his life that will end with total meaningless. This soliloquy of Macbeth's signifies Macbeth's pathetic life and his, once again, usage of words which ironically embodies his life, too. Throughout the play, Macbeth has said things that ironically represent him. Another idea expressed in this soliloquy is the opposition of light and darkness as symbols of life and death. The tone is set right after Macbeth hears of his queen's death. He now feels necessary to comment on life seeing his hopes turn to ashes. When Macbeth says, "tomorrow creeps in this petty pace" brings a negative connotation to tomorrow. Tomorrow keeps coming slowly until one day it will attack. Macbeth, now, views life as a slow petty progression and tomorrow as unrelenting thus this increases its negative and dark connotations. "Tomorrow creeps . . . to the last syllable of recorded time", with these remarks Macbeth presents his hopeless outlook on life. His feels time will come until it succeeds in taking

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