Macbeth Explication: Paraphrase

Macbeth Explication: Paraphrase

Macbeth

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;

And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,

And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,

Which was not so before. There's no such thing:

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. Paraphrase

Is this a dagger that I see in front of me,

Its handle pointing towards my hand? Come, let me grab you.

I don't have you in my hand, but I can see you.

Are you as real to my hand as to my eye,

Or are you only a dagger

Of the mind, a hallucination

Springing from a fevered brain?

I can still see you as clearly as the dagger that I'm now drawing.

You showed me the way I had to go

And indicated that I was to use a dagger.

My eyes are seen as crazy when compared to my other senses,

I can still see you.

And on your blade there are blobs of blood that weren't there before. There's no such

thing:

It is the murderous thing I'm about to do that's putting this image in front of me.

Macbeth Explication: The Explication

William Shakespeare's epic play known as Macbeth is full with detailed and well thought out monologues that help define the play as being great. Each of these monologues are unique in the way that they all help tell the story in a way that causes its reader's mind to think about what it is saying. One of these monologues is found in Act 2, Scene 1. It is acted out by the character known as Macbeth and involves a hallucination of a bloody dagger. This monologue sets a new tone of the play and is filled with rhetorical and poetic devices that illuminate the passage with an ominous tone. Overall, Shakespeare's use of both poetic and rhetorical devices along with this use of meaningful diction edges a dark and murderous tone into Macbeth monologue of the dagger.

This passage from Macbeth is filled with numerous amounts of detail and may seem confusing at first glance. Overall, Macbeth, after discussing the crime of killing Duncan with Lady Macbeth, has decided to go through with the horrible crime. Now he is waiting alone for the bell, which will summon him to murder Duncan. As he waits, he finds himself pondering his decision one final time. The focus of the invisible dagger is the first glimpse of Macbeth's powerful imagination. This highly working imagination is largely responsible for the mental torment he finds himself suffering from throughout the play. Although Macbeth knows that the dagger is an optical illusion or hallucination, and suspects that it could be brought about by his potentially "heat-oppressed brain" (II.i.51), he nonetheless allows this phantom dagger to affect him tremendously about whether he will go through with the deed of murder. Enhancing

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