Respect and Sympathy in Macbeth's Soliloquies

Respect and Sympathy in Macbeth's Soliloquies

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Macbeth is a complex story of a great and popular king, named Duncan,

who is murdered brutally by a horrid, vicious Tyrant called Macbeth,

who was considered one of Duncan's closest and most loyal friends.

This tyrant brings havoc and devastation to the once almighty land of

Scotland. Macbeth is an intricate character and has many different

personality changes throughout the play. Shakespeare created Macbeth

as a character who would capture our imaginations, and intrigue us as

readers. He wanted us to find hidden meanings in the most simple

phrases, thus becoming involved with Macbeth as a character and

understanding his inner most thoughts.

A soliloquy is a classical literary technique which allows a character

to share his or her thoughts and feelings with the audience.

Throughout Macbeth there are moments when important characters are

given the opportunity to express details of their personality, and

reveal information that is otherwise not given, but is vital to the

development of the story.

Macbeth has four major soliloquies in which we get to know how he is

feeling about certain key events, and also lesser ones such as his

private life with Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare put Macbeth's heart and

soul into his soliloquies, and attempted to gain Macbeth sympathy and

some respect.

Prior to Macbeth's first soliloquy our view of him has already begun

to change. In the beginning he is seen as a good, kind, loyal sol...

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...otally focused on killing

the King, and becoming a horrid murderer.

In this scenehowever, we do gain even more sympathy for Macbeth.

Shakespeare shows Macbeth hallucinating over the dagger, and then

becoming quite worked up over the matter. Macbeth becomes more

child-like and confused. He can't tell if it is his eyes that are

lying to him, or if it is all of his other senses which are deceiving

him when he is imagining that there is a dagger floating in front of

him. We feel sorry for him because it is as if he is mentally

challenged, and a human instinct is to feel sorry for someone or

something which is hurt or not normal.

Shakespeare uses lots of different types of language in this

soliloquy, he uses personification, imagery, rhetorical questions,

repetition, all to the advantage of winning Macbeth sympathy.