ACT V, SCENE 5: MACBETH’S SOLILOQUY

Questions for Discussion

1. Give the interpretation of the tragedy Macbeth: Act V Scene 5
2. In what situation was Macbeth when he heard the news of his wife’s death?
How did he feel?
3. What effect is the repetition of the word “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and
tomorrow”? What is the literary device?
4. Why did Macbeth think that the coming days go so slowly “Creeps in this
petty pace from day to day”?
5. What is the implication of the line: “And all our yesterdays have lighted
fools/ The way to dusty death.
6. What is the metaphor as implies in the line “Out, out brief candle”
7. What is life considered as in the line “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor
player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage”?
8. How is “the tale of life” told according to Shakespeare?
Macbeth- Act V, Scene 5
“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.”
Interpretation (by Ian McKellen)
“She should not have died now;
There would have been a time for such a
word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Drags so slowly on the narrow path day
by day to the end of history,
And our past is like the candles lightening
the fools to death. Blow out the candle!
Life is no more than a walking shadow,
a pitiful actor
Who plays through all emotions in one
hour on the stage
And then disappears forever behind the
curtain: life is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of noise and anger,
But meaningless.”

“She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.” → “Tomorrow”: synecdoche for the future
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,”
Macbeth’s regret and upset about Lady
Macbeth’s death → his isolation
→ repetition: emphasizes the slow passage of
time that Macbeth would suffer for the rest of
his life.
→His future drags so slowly day by day
Why?
→ a series of ephemeral and meaningless
days trailing him to death.
A merely undesirable future, without joy or
happiness

“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief
candle!”
“Yesterday”: synecdoche for the past
What did Macbeth think about the past?
→ men are fools who are guided forward
from the past (“yesterday”) to death.
→ His dilemma: the past was pushing him
forward but the future would wrap him in
darkness.
→ The past did not make any sense in his
life.
→ “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” (Bible): All
people, no matter who they are and what they
did in the past will end up returning to dust.
→“a brief candle”: metaphor: transience of
human life.
→ life is like a lighting candle, ablaze at
times but soon burned out.
→ Lady Macbeth’s candle has burned out,
and soon his candle will, too.
→ He found it useless to live on, and had no
way to escape but accepted death.

“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.”
How did Macbeth (and also Shakespeare)
contemplate human life ?
→Life is an illusion, like a shadow,
insubstantial and emotionless.
→Life is merely a stage, on which all men and
women are players who perform their roles
of life. (“All the world is merely a stage. All
men and women are players”- Shakespeare)
”hour”: synecdoche for life: our life is just like
an hour on stage-how fleeting life is!
→Life is a tale told by a fool, which is loud and
showy, but with no meaning, no theme.
Who is that “idiot”?
→“An idiot” can be fate (weird) which
controlled Macbeth’s life and drove him
crazy.
→It can be ourselves, who are running around,
making fuss, but will end up in nothing.
Macbeth regarded himself as a bad player who
was trapped by his fate.
Metaphors→ to lament the futility and
emptiness of human life.
THOUGHT BUBBLE
Rewrite Shakespeare’s metaphorical connotation of life in your
own interpretation with positive messages.
1/ If life is a brief candle, .......
2/ If life is a stage, on which we are actors performing our roles, ....
3/ If life is a tale, ....
ACT IT OUT
Imagine you were in Macbeth’s situation. Use your imagination to
present Macbeth’s soliloquy as dramatically as you can.

SOURCE:
https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/soliloquies/macbeth
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-first-half-macbeths-so
liloquy-contrast-47635