Examples Of Juxtaposition In Macbeth

A question that has haunted humanity for all of eternity, which has hung over our heads like a conscience, is: were our lives written out for us, or are we bequeathed the power to choose our actions and dictate the path forward? And if there are such concepts as fate and destiny, are we allowed to negotiate with them? Destiny is a predetermined course of events, chosen by a supernatural power—some force beyond our extremely mortal and scientific understanding—which may appear in any manifestation. Fate, which has domineered much of the religious mythology in human history, is the agent we beckon upon to rationalise and defend the often immoral or inexplicable actions of protagonists in stories. It is this emissary used to make up for the lack

Furthermore, the stage direction here, of the ‘drum within,’ which signals Macbeth’s arrival, is not just building suspense: it is the reverberation of guilt, a foreshadowing of the events to come, a reflection of Shakespeare’s insurmountable lexical ability. A juxtaposition is constructed between Macbeth and Banquo, inventing them into two dissimilar archetypes of human belief. Banquo is more sceptical, believing that they have “eaten the insane root,” rather than believing the mystic, that the witches are there. He is not so easily convinced by the prophecy as Macbeth is, despite the grand predictions for him. This allows Shakespeare to convey the two branching paths of human nature, offering a choice to the reader, that we can choose our own beliefs. This entire interaction, this sequence of phantasmagoria in the characters’ minds, has Macbeth, “rapt withal,” —already he is imagining and bringing alive his future mentally, and if it was not an objective proximate to him, it is now.

He wants to be king, and to do so, Duncan must be out of the way, and the only way to do that.is regicide. He directly ignores the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, despite being a devout Christian in Catholic Scotland, which states that the monarch of a country is chosen by God Himself to be His representative on Earth. Macbeth disregards this entirely, and takes matters into his own hands by proclaiming the dagger to have led him, and innately, plays God with the succeeding events. While previously shifting between the dichotomy of moral and immoral, he acts upon the latter here consciously. He initiates all manner of horrors, seemingly without intention. Is this his wavering conscience or destiny signalling to him? Shakespeare uses the personification here, where Macbeth asks to, “clutch thee,” implying that the dagger is beckoning him to commit the murder, again blaming external circumstances when really, interestingly, revealing his own intention. This visual imagery appears in the reader’s mind, crafted with a lure of power that even the bravest Macbeth could not resist. Shakespeare uses mimesis here, and mimics the reality of man in art: even somebody as infallible and heroic as Macbeth crumbles in front of unconstrained power and space. This is how weak and frail human nature is. All our grand proclamations