Literary+Devices

__ Literary Devices __
This page is set aside for you to include your analysis of literary devices in the play. Be sure to include quotations with Act, Scene and Line numbers. For each literary device, you can include analysis that details literal and figurative meanings, purpose, effect on the reader, and ways in which the device helps to communicate theme. Also, look for patterns and repeated literary devices, and comment on overall effect of these types of patterns.


 * __Soliloquy__**
 * The act of talking while alone or when one thinks they are alone most times used in a play so the audience can know what the character is thinking.
 * An example of this in Macbeth is (1.4.50-55). In this scene Macbeth is talking to himself about what he thinks about the witches saying he'll be king.
 * Another example is when Macbeth is talking about the dagger he sees he saying what he is thinking. (2.1.33-61) he is having a debate with himself if he should kill Duncan or not so he can be king.
 * In Act 3 Scene 4 Macbeth has a lot of thoughts he is saying out loud about Fleance escaping Line 24-29 and 34-38


 * __Contrast__**
 * There is contrast between the martlet and the raven.
 * The marlet nests where it feels the most comfortable (being the castle in this case).
 * The raven is a symbol of death and evil.
 * Banquo is very loyal well his friend Macbeth killed the king.
 * __Foreshadowing__**

Foreshadowing is when you give hints or clues in a story as to what's going to happen next. >> First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis! >> Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! >> Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter! (1.3.50-53) >>
 * Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches and hear their predictions.
 * When the witches meet Macbeth they greet him with three titles, "Thane of Glamis," "Thane of Cawdor," and "King hereafter."
 * The last two titles are used as foreshadowing for things that might happen later on.
 * The bloody battle in Act 1 foreshadows the bloody murders later on.


 * Banquo remembers the witches' prediction, and so he suspects that Macbeth has killed the king to get the kingship. Banquo also knows that the witches said that his descendants would be king. This foreshadows that Macbeth is not finished securing the throne, and we know that Banquo is now in danger. (3.1)

Macbeth: "I care not if thou dost for me as much. I pull in resolution, and begin To doubt the equivocation of the fiend That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane";and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane";and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!" (5.5.46-51)


 * Macbeth has felt unworried by Malcolm's approaching army until he hears that it looks as if the Birnam wood is moving toward the castle. Macbeth realizes that part of the prophecy is coming true, but not in the way that he expected it to.


 * All the of Witches predictions, and prophecy's and examples of foreshadowing because they're giving Macbeth a look at what lies in his future.


 * __Personification__**


 * Personification: Bestows human characteristics upon anything nonhuman, from an abstract idea to a physical force. For instance: (Love is blind).

//"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' th' other senses,// //Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still" (//2.1.40-52) This explains when Macbeth knows he must go kill the King Duncan and is imagining a dagger in front of him leading him towards the sleeping king. He thinks that either his eyes are the only sense that are not working, //or// the only one of his senses that are. He thinks this because the dagger looks as real as the dagger he pulls out after and thinks that it is the murder he is about to do playing tricks on him and causing the hallucination.
 * __Sensory Detail__**
 * Detail describing the use of human senses (eg. sight, smell, touch, hear, taste).
 * Sight:**

//"Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder,// //Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,// //Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,// //With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design// //Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,// //Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear// //Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,// //And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.////I go, and it is done. The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell."// (2.1.59-71) This is right before the murder takes place and Duncan is even more nervous than when he was imagining the dagger. He mentions that he is like Tarquin (the son of the last king of Rome) and moves stealthily like a ghost. He also speaks of wolf howls, and the "terrible silence of the moment" that he is so uncomfortable in. He asks the hard ground not to reveal his secrets of what he is about to do. Then, he hears the funeral bell which signifies that all of Duncan's servants have gone to bed and that it is time for the murder to finally take place.
 * Hear:**

Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!’ (1,5,47-54) 2,2,55-61 This is when Lady Macbeth is trying to convince Macbeth to kill the King. You can imagine many different images in this quote like Lady Macbeth becoming a man or the dunnest smoke of hell etc.

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine. (2,2,55-61) This was soon after Macbeth murdered King Duncan and he was all bloody. This you can picture Macbeth washing his hand in the ocean and it turning red.

Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums And dash'd the brains out had I so sworn as you Have done to this. (1.7.3) This is when Lady Macbeth was saying she would kill her own baby to be Queen.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.(2,1,34)What he is imagining when he is going to kill the King. A simile is a comparison using the words like or as to show the similarity. Ex. She's as brave as a lion.
 * __Metaphor/Simile__**

A Metaphor is a comparison not using the words like or as to show the similarity. Ex. The test was a breeze.


 * "For them the gracious Duncan I have murdered; put rancours in the vessel of my peace only for them" The metaphor suggests that Macbeth's peace of mind was enclosed in a sacred container, and a corrupting object has been introduced.(act 3, scene 1, lines 70-73)
 * "fair is foul and foul is fair" The witches are comparing themselves and the war, everything that is good will become bad and vice versa (act1, scene1, line 11)
 * "As whence the sun 'gins his reflection shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break, so from whence comfort seem'd to come" they are comparing the frighting storm to the battle that just happened. (act 1, scene 2, lines 27-29)
 * "A heavy summons lies like lead apon me" He is so tired his eyes and body feel heavy like lead. (Act 2, scene 1, line7)
 * "To feeling as to sight" (act 2, scene 1, line: 44)
 * "Moves like a ghost" (act 2, scene 1, line: 63)
 * "There's comfort yet; they are assailable;" (3.2.44)
 * "The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!" (5.5.25)
 * "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player" (5.5.26)
 * __Pathetic Fallacy__**
 * To give inanimate objects human emotions and characteristics.
 * Ex. The Cruel Winds, The Angry Sea
 * []

"As whence the sun 'gins his reflection Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break" (1.2.28) The battle being compared to storms & thunder.

"The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion and confused events New hatch'd to the woeful time; the obscure bird Clamour'd the live-long night: some say the earth Was feverous and did shake." (2.3.57-65) Strange disturbance within the night.

__**Dramatic Irony**__

By Sinel's Death I know that I am thane of Glamis; But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman; and to be king Stands no more within the prospect of belief, No more than to be Cawdor"
 * Definition:** Dramatic irony is when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do for the characters. This is the result of the reader having a greater knowledge than the characters themselves. ([])
 * Examples:**
 * "Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:

The audience knows that Macbeth will be thane of Cawdor, but he himself does not. an absolute trust"
 * "He was a gentleman on whom i built,

Duncan trusted the original thane of Cawdor, who betrayed him, and then, ironically, died of the same mistake.

To alter favor ever is to fear: Leave all the rest to me"
 * "Only look up clear;

Lady Macbeth is more consumed with the plot than Macbeth even though it was his idea.

So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!"
 * "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:

Banquo's sons will be kings but he will never be.

Macbeth: I think not of them: Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,We would spend it in some words upon that business, If you would grant the time" 2.1. 30 – 25.
 * " Banquo: All's well. I dream last night of the three weird sisters: To you they have show'd some truth.

As the weird women promised; and i fear Thou pay'dst most foully for't: yet it was said It should not stand within my posterity, But that myself should be the root and father Of many kings"
 * Banquo brings up the witches.
 * Macbeth says he does not think about the witches anymore.
 * Truth is that Macbeth is thinking about the witches a lot.
 * "Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis all.

Banquo suspects Macbeth and fears for his life and that of his heirs, but he must appear loyal.


 * "If I stand here, I saw him"

Macbeth can see the ghost but no one else can, making Macbeth seem insane.