A first soliloquy from Macbeth is in Act I, Scene 7, beginning with “If it were done when ‘tis done…”. The main theme of this speech is Macbeth’s internal debate about whether or not he should kill Duncan. On one hand, he could kill him, and reach his ambitions and fulfill his prophecy and become king. On the other hand, he likes Duncan first of all, believes it would be morally wrong to kill him, and is afraid of consequences and karma from killing Duncan. In the first part of this soliloquy (I, 7, 1-12), Macbeth is essentially saying “If only I could kill Duncan without consequence”. A first demonstration of this inner debate comes with Macbeth’s repetition of the word done. At the very beginning of this speech, Macbeth says, “If it were …show more content…
He just wants the whole thing to be over, and quickly. The repetition places emphasis upon this, and upon the fact that he is truly considering murdering Duncan to the point where he is envisioning how to do it. Another rhetorical device used in this speech is alliteration. When envisioning the death of Duncan, Macbeth refers to it as “surcease success” (I, 7, 4). Shakespeare uses this alliteration to, when addressing the death of Duncan, make Macbeth sound somewhat like a snake, with the alliteration of s’s. Snakes are often associated with backstabbing and disloyalty, which is exactly what Macbeth was considering being towards Duncan, so that is why Shakespeare would use such alliteration to try and make Macbeth sound like a snake. A 3rd device used in this part of the soliloquy is analogy. Macbeth says, “That we teach bloody instructions, which,being taught, return to plague the inventor”. This is an analogy of the fact that Duncan was the one who taught Macbeth, being a great warrior, how to kill. Therefore, Macbeth is saying what the teacher has taught will come back around and haunt him, meaning Macbeth will be using what Duncan taught him in order to kill