Macbeth Figurative Language

Shakespeare, in his play, Macbeth, in his renowned Tomorrow Speech of act five, scene five, displays the pessimistic attitude that Macbeth has developed about time and life. Shakespeare uses this scene to dissipate any positive outlooks Macbeth might have had, simultaneously depicting the illusion of life and dangerous effects of ambition and mistrust on both a country and the people themselves. He enhances a desolate and despondent tone with his use of repetition and metaphors in order to a evoke a wretched, gloomy attitude all the while guiding his Elizabethan audience’s attention towards certain realities of time and mistrust during a time of great chaos and fear.

Shakespeare employs a bleak and detached tone through his use of repetition

Clearly, the word tomorrow is repeated over and over again, which, in a sense, works to drag this line out and make it seem somewhat endless. Soon after, Macbeth repeats the word “day” twice, yet again, emphasizing the prolonged nature of the line (5.5.20). Thus, this use of repetition helps to reflect the incessant cyclical nature of time and life, which is inevitably bound to end at a certain point; because of this, Macbeth has, evidently, concluded that life is meaningless, empty and devoid of all meaning, essentially claiming that life is solely an illusion. With Macbeth’s feelings of despair and his pessimistic attitude unveiled, Shakespeare is able to not only demonstrate the effects unchecked ambition can have on a person’s perspective, but also further enhance a bleak and detached tone; he is thus able to provoke the same kind of feelings amongst the audience. Furthermore, as Macbeth continues to denounce life, highlighted through Shakespeare’s use of repetition, the audience obtains a better understanding of how unchecked ambition can lead not only to the corruption of a

Macbeth begins to conclude his speech, claiming despairingly that “life’s but a walking shadow” (5.5.24). Shakespeare’s decision to refer to a “shadow” is stimulating as shadows can only be created with light and are truly only a faded reflection of the real thing. Here, the contrast between light and dark depicts how with light and truth comes darkness and a faded reality that never fails to follow a person wherever they go; clearly, Macbeth has given up on the reality of life, using a shadow to obliquely denote life as an illusion, intensifying the desolate tone. Thereafter, Macbeth depicts life as “a poor player/ that struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ and then is heard no more” to stress the point that there is nothing in the end; ultimately, people carry on with their lives, only to realize that they have little significance to the universe and time as a whole. Fundamentally, Macbeth’s unchecked ambition and trust in the witches induced him to do all he could to maintain the throne only to come to the realization that it was all for nothing. As a result of this realization, Shakespeare is able to establish the lack of purpose and meaning to life, which contributes to the grim tone of the speech. He effectively uses Macbeth’s desolation and dark attitude to denounce life and convey the futility of unchecked ambition and trust in