MACBETH

     She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
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. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Shakespeare in this quote is trying to communicate something really important about life. Shakespeare chooses the right time to deliver this message to his audiences. Macbeth’s wife just died, and Macbeth loves her so much. Just to give you an image of how much Macbeth loves his wife, Macbeth killed Duncan, a king of Scotland, because his wife told him to do it, and he did it even when she did shame him and questioned his masculinity.

This is why the soliloquy “She should have died hereafter” by Macbeth is really important. Shakespeare is not talking necessarily about Macbeth’s feelings now. Shakespeare in fact is trying to communicate a message about life. The first two lines are, “She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word.” life is too short for a person to cover everything they want to cover in their lives. Essentially Macbeth is saying that he does not have time for sadness. In a sense Macbeth is right because he, the king of Scotland, is in fight with his people and the English army. In other words, Macbeth is saying through Shakespeare’s words that he does not have the time to mourn about his wife’s death. Which does raise suspension, hence Shakespeare is saying that life is short and you cannot do everything you want to, however Macbeth is saying that he does not have time to be sad – If Macbeth dies he will regret not being sad -. And when Shakespeare says “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, 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.” In these verses, Shakespeare uses the first metaphors in this soliloquy. Macbeth says that every day we spend on our lives, death starts sneaking from day to day until the time has come and that time that was recorded for you is over. Shakespeare might also mean that God and Angeles were recording everything you have done and every syllable you have said. And then Macbeth says: in the past the way to death was obvious and only fools did choose it. In other words only fools die. The metaphors that Shakespeare used are Creeps since death cannot creep, -it is probably personification as well-, and syllable since time is not measured with syllables. Shakespeare also says that life is a brief candle using a metaphor “Out, out, brief candle!” Shakespeare than says that life is just a player that shows off and gets sad for an hour and then no one hears about him. He also says that this is just a tale told by an idiot, we can see the use of the linguistic device of diction since Shakespeare use the word idiot and nothing else to describe him self to the audience. Shakespeare then continues to say that that idiot ,which is him, is just making sounds that mean nothing. This is interesting, hence in the world of Macbeth Shakespeare is God himself. -He creates stuff and removes stuff and know what is in the characters’ minds.- However, if Shakespeare did not mean that verse on this way, he meant it in a way where he says that (these are words used to explain, and I do not agree with them) this tale is told by an idiot, and that idiot is God, that God is just emitting sounds that mean nothing to him. All of these meanings are all combined to make a beautiful soliloquy.