Macbeth's Soliloquy Essay

William Shakespeare’s tragedy play, Macbeth, shows how power can corrupt a person. Macbeth begins with him as a noble person, but after getting crowned king, he becomes paranoid and his whole outlook on life changes. In act 5 scene 5, after Macbeth learns of lady Macbeth’s death, he gives a soliloquy describing his current outlook on life. Through the soliloquy, Macbeth expresses his sadness and despair by talking about the meaninglessness of life. Macbeth first talks about his opinion at the beginning of the soliloquy when he talks about the speed of which time passes, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow/ creeps in this petty pace from day to day/ to the last syllable of recorded time,”(5.5.22-24). The repetition of the word ‘tomorrow’ puts emphasis on his awareness of

By describing time as moving at a ‘petty pace from day to day’, Macbeth expresses his feelings of how time seems to make fun of him or punishing him for his decisions by taking everyone he cares for and continuing to move forward around him. Macbeth’s irrational feelings of time creeping up on him emphasize his feelings about time’s trickery and his awareness of his future demise. Another example of Macbeth’s opinion about the meaninglessness of life appears when he says that “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/ that struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ and then is heard no more” (5.5.28-30). Macbeth’s metaphors for life, the ‘walking shadow’ and the ‘poor player’ show the emptiness and uselessness of life. The “walking shadow’ shows the emptiness and dreariness of life, similar to how a shadow does not need a purpose and only becomes visible as darkness when the sun comes out but it still exists, even when invisible. This parallels how Macbeth currently lives in constant fear of losing his power as king or discovered as the murder of Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s