Macbeth's Craziness

Poor Players and Walking Shadows

In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, he uses real truths of life to create another notorious Shakespearian tragedy. Macbeth creates blood on both his wife's and his own hands, which results in their own deaths. He killed people for greed and revenge, and becomes a victim of his own fate. Lady Macbeth develops an infected conscience that kills her due to the accessory to a greedy, cold-blooded murder. The lack of sleep and the overpowering deal of stress made Lady Macbeth a vivid example of the murderous effects that stress causes in one's self. After hearing the cries of women, Macbeth is informed by Seyton that his queen has died. Macbeth became immune to fear prior to the dreadful news; he knew that Lady Macbeth was going to die someday, and hereafter was the day Macbeth goes into battle. Macbeth is then driven to an epiphany: he goes into a deep metaphoric stanza describing life to be useless and tedious. He claims that life is similar to an actor, worried and anxious before a brief performance, but vanishes with no return. Shakespeare describes Macbeth's struggles and hardships emotionally, and spiritually within this one brief, but tragic stanza.

Shakespeare uses beautiful implications of poetic elements to enhance the scene in the play where Lady Macbeth takes her own life. He makes the reader feel as if they witness Macbeth's distress for the loss of his wife. Shakespeare includes a tone that can be understood in context from an enraged king with an ongoing lethal set of hands. The angry, desolate tone that Shakespeare uses in Macbeth's words connects the reader into a dark channel of thought; a progressive rain of sympathy is given for the irate king. His tone is enhanced with the perfect use of the exclamation point during, "Out, out, brief candle!". His anger reflects on his regression towards life - how life can be so cruel to make one feel as if it is a long journey, but in Macbeth's heart, a brief ignition of the soul that is put out too quickly. Shakespeare uses alliteration to give an unblemished flow as an addition to his tone of this passage. His choice of words distinguish the pure, relinquished epiphany that Macbeth receives by creating a rich current of alliterative connection with the reader. The words in the stanza,

"To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death."

are a wonderful example of how Shakespeare uses alliteration to enhance the reader's emotions towards Macbeth's compressed feelings. This quote is signifying the useless, unexplainable factors of existence. Macbeth's wretched heart is awakened through his darkened conscience and examines that each tomorrow is closer to death; a light that misleads people into believing there is something greater at the end of the road, but in reality, just a synthetic hope that is destroyed.

The use of metaphors is incredible in Macbeth's verse. Shakespeare makes his mark on the play when Macbeth has lost hope on life, and decides it is not worth living anymore. Although Shakespeare's writing is naturally dark, Macbeth's stanza destroys all other competition. The way that Shakespeare makes the reader feel death is impenetrable due to the fact that he is capable to compare death to a nervous actor that is seen briefly within a play. Shakespeare uses these metaphors to hinge the underlying emotions within Macbeth:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard