I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. Further, “To feeling as to sight?” gives emphasis on how his sense has overpowered him and his growing thought of insanity as he replays the act of killing Duncan in his mind. “The handle toward my hand?” explains that he is about to kill Duncan with a dagger, for he reaches his dagger to ensure that what is hanging in front is his vision than the real dagger. Here, the rhetorical questions used illustrate what Macbeth has in mind at that time. The rhetorical question in literature intends to make the idea of the writer clear. The image of the “dagger” and “blooded dagger” also serve as symbols in the soliloquy to depict the theme of guilt and intended murder. Images used by Shakespeare in the lines, “Is this a dagger which I see before me”, “With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design” and “And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood” elaborates on the mental picture of Macbeth who is about to execute his plan. Imagery in a literary work helps the readers perceive things involving their five senses. First, Macbeth sees the dagger and as he speaks further, “It is the bloody business which informs/ Thus to mine eyes” he sees the dagger with blood on it that indicates his intended act. These sentences help to understand the chain effect, each idea causes the other. Shakespeare has used a number of enjambed sentences in this soliloquy. “Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.” “Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going ” Similarly, Alliteration is used with the repletion of the sounds /m/ and /h/ in the following lines: In this soliloquy, one could see the sounds /ee/ and /o/ repeated in the following lines: Shakespeare, well known for his use of imagery and metaphor, has employed some literary devices, to show the wickedness of the soul.Īssonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same lines of poetry. Literary devices help the writers to create a style of their own and to convey ideas, feelings, and emotions to the readers. “The dagger” and “the blood on the dagger” represents his evil instinct, guilt, and remorse. His weakness in character is depicted through the hallucination that leads him to murder. It is the night, and the darkness reveals the darkness of his plan. Setting here is the time before Macbeth intends to kill Duncan. Throughout this speech, Shakespeare reflects upon the wickedness and dark side of human nature. Especially, in this soliloquy, Evil, insanity, and supernatural elements are the major themes underlined in this passage. In ‘Macbeth’, there are many themes and the major ones are ambition and power, the supernatural, appearances, and reality. The lines in the poem are ‘ Trochee,’ this stressed and unstressed syllable pattern continues throughout the poem. The poem has two stanzas of varying length. The speech is a poetic form of some lines. It captures Macbeth’s mental and emotional condition at the time. It is spoken by Macbeth in the ingenuous tragedy of Shakespeare. ‘ Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me’ is in the form of a soliloquy. Though guilt and insanity were weighing him down, he resolves to kill Duncan and follows his hallucination. He takes that as a clue from Lady Macbeth and goes on to execute their plan, recognition of all his flaws and sins. In the soliloquy, he comments on the wickedness of the world, before his thoughts are interrupted by the ringing of the bell. He first sees a dagger hanging mid-air, and then he sees it with blood dripping from it. Still, Macbeth is wracked with guilt over what he is about to do, and his mind races with thoughts of such evil action. Inspired in part by his own ambition, the decision to murder Duncan is aided by the prophecies of the Witches as well as the insistent urging of his wife. Macbeth has made his decision to kill the King and take the crown as his own. His imagination brings forth the picture of a dagger in front of him, which symbolizes the impending murder. Macbeth speaks this famous soliloquy when he is taken over by his guilt and growing insanity for killing Duncan.
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