Language and Culture IV

Soria, María de los Ángeles

4°2- Evening shift

Assignment: Psychological Approaches in Macbeth’s soliloquy.

Analyze Macbeth’s soliloquy (1.7-1.28) choosing a psychological model out of the

following:

- Manifest and latent content, observing and perhaps attempting to decode the
text’s strategies of condensation, displacement and symbolism.

People’s minds are a whole universe. There are many things in them that may need to be
expressed somehow, and literature is one of the ways people may use to do so. The
purpose of this essay is to show how they can express what is in their minds through a
literary piece. This will be done through the analysis of an extract of Shakespeare’s play
Macbeth,​ more specifically, Macbeth’s soliloquy in act 1- scene 7 according to Robert Pope’s
perspectives of the mind.

First of all, and before the analysis, it may be useful to state what Pope’s points of view are.
People’s minds are overloaded with information of all types: intentions, desires, regrets, etc.
Sometimes they are aware of certain feelings but there are some other feelings they may not
be aware of. Pope (1998), inspired on Freud’s theories, states that this is mainly because of
the unconscious and consciousness within the mind. The former refers to those feelings
people are not aware of, whereas the latter refers to those that they are. The unconscious,
according to Pope, is a “huge yet hidden power that drives much of what we do” (p. 97). This
means that it is the part in the brain that is continuously trying to express itself and, many
times, no one realises it is there. The author also states in his book that dreams, as well as
literature and art, are ways that the mind uses to express what remains hidden. When
analysing any piece of literature, he refers to the surface (conscious) meaning as ​manifest
content while the hidden (unconscious) meaning is referred to as ​latent content​. Regarding

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this last item, the author mentions three different ways in which hidden meaning tries to
come to surface: condensation, displacement and symbolism (p.98). What follows is the
analysis of Macbeth’s soliloquy to exemplify this.

First, condensation, according to Pope, is used when “two or more meanings come to bear
on the same word” (p.98). This can be expressed through any metaphor present in any
piece of literature. In Macbeth’s soliloquy, lines 4-7, Macbeth uses a metaphor to refer to the
limited time on earth by using words related to water : “that but this blow might be the be-all
and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we’d jump the life to come”.
In this example, the ​bank and ​shoal refer to the time he has as limited and shallow whereas
the ​life to come that can be compared to a whole ocean. Another metaphor can be found in
lines 8-12: “We still have judgment here, that we but teach bloody instructions, which, being
taught, return to plague th’ inventor: this even-handed justice commends the ingredients of
our poisoned chalice to our own lips”. In this metaphor Macbeth is talking about the
instructions to kill the King which will return to punish him. He compares this punishment with
a poisoned chalice that will return to his own lips.

Secondly, the author defines displacement as those “items that stand in for another with
which it has perceived connection”(p. 98). An example of this can be found in lines 12-16,
Macbeth says “as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against the deed; as his
host, who should against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself”; here the
word ​knife​ represents the murder, as it is a tool commonly used to perform this type of acts.

Finally, symbolism is also present within this soliloquy. It is a word that means something
different from its real meaning, such as ​blow in line 4, which in this case symbolizes the
King’s murder. In line 10, Macbeth mentions an ​inventor referring to the person that came up
with the idea of killing the King. In line 20, there is another example when Macbeth talks
about the King’s ​taking-off​ that refers to his death.

In conclusion, there are more things in people's minds than what they can really
acknowledge; things that remain hidden in the unconscious part of the mind. Somehow
these things want to come to surface and, according to Pope, literature is one of the ways in
which the mind can do so. Through the methods of condensation, displacement and
symbolism, this can be achieved successfully, as it has been exemplified in Macbeth’s
soliloquy. Undoubtedly, literature becomes a very useful tool for bringing to the surface what
remains hidden.

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References:

Pope, R. (1998) ​The English Studies Book ​(p. 77-123) Routledge: London.

​ he New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge University

Shakespeare, W. (2006) ​Macbeth. T
Press: Cambridge.