Prior to Macbeth’s first soliloquy our view of him has already begun to change. In the beginning he is seen as a good, kind, loyal soldier, the Thane of Glamis, who has the respect of his friends and the King. However, once he has met the witches and hears from them that he will become the more powerful Thane Of Cawdor and then eventually King, he writes to his wife expressing his fears that he is too decent and squeamish to murder Duncan for the crown. From this point on, we start to wonder about Macbeth’s integrity.
By the time of Macbeth’s first soliloquy we have witnessed Shakespeare change Macbeth from a loyal soldier, to contemplating the murder of his King. Macbeth’s first soliloquy is basically his inner dialogue where he is deciding whether or not to murder Duncan.
Shakespeare has Macbeth talking about the murder in great detail, but has him talking about it in brutal language (euphemisms): ‘horrid deed’, ’it’, ‘’tis’, ‘this blow’, ‘bear the knife’, ‘his taking off’ and ‘assassination’. This may have been Shakespeare’s way of trying to get across to the audience, that Macbeth was scared to murder Duncan, and wouldn’t even speak of it openly. In a vague way this wins some sympathy for Macbeth as it gives an image to the audience of an extremely confused man. Also the fact that in every soliloquy Macbeth is talking to himself, which gives the impression of insanity, as he is debating with himself whether or not to kill Duncan. The people of the early 17th Century would have noticed this certainly whilst watching the live performances at such great venues as Hampton Court where it was first performed, but whether or not, the people of 1606, whilst watching the play, would have really thought about why Shakespeare never had Macbeth speak directly about killing Duncan, and think about this as a sign of being a coward, or feel sympathy towards Macbeth because of doing this, I will never know!
We can tell that Macbeth is a religious character, as there are many religious quotes in the play. Shakespeare puts regular religious references in this soliloquy, such as Line 6-7 in Act 1 scene 7, ‘…bank and shoal of time, we jump the life to come.’ This is one of Macbeth’s metaphors, Macbeth wants to jump over time, he wants to jump judgement day , and go straight to heaven. This is a sad comment, because generally religious people are scared of judgement day, but would want to hear St Peter, hopefully, telling you that you can go to heaven and rest happily for ever. So Macbeth is scared that if he kills Duncan he might not go to heaven and may go to hell. Macbeth wins sympathy here, as there would have been a lot of people of that time, when Macbeth was first performed, who could have related to Macbeth on some level, as they would most likely have been scared of judgement day, and would have wanted to go to heaven.
There are lots of points where Shakespeare allows us to relate to Macbeth in this soliloquy, as Macbeth really expresses his feelings, and Shakespeare tries to get us to think that all Macbeth wants, is for everything to go right, and for him to do the right thing. The people of the 1600’s would have been able to understand Macbeth here and feel sorry for him, but so can we today when either reading the play or watching it. As Macbeth is just like most men, and doesn’t want to upset his wife, which is like many gentleman today, who hate to see their wives upset or disappointed, and would try and do anything for them in the name of love!
Also Shakespeare uses very upsetting and powerful imagery, for example on line 21 (act1 scene 7), where Shakespeare writes, ‘And pity like a naked new-born babe, striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin…’ he is using good imagery, and is creating a sad atmosphere by writing in a depressing, and upsetting style. This will make people feel sad because they are thinking of these distressing thoughts such as angelic children crying (line 22-25, act 1 scene 7,’ …heaven’s cherubin…tears shall drown the wind…’) Shakespeare does very well in earning Macbeth sympathy with imagery like this throughout the play, including in Macbeth’s next soliloquy.
In act 2 scene 1 Shakespeare portrays Macbeth as being much weirder and eccentric, compared to the un-certain Macbeth we have in his previous soliloquy. In this second soliloquy we can split it into two halves: the first half, where Macbeth is hallucinating about the dagger, and the second being when Macbeth’s hallucinations have ended, and he is totally committed to the murder of Duncan. By doing this the audience looses a certain amount of respect towards him. This is because Macbeth has no more logic, he is totally focused on killing the King, and becoming a horrid murderer.
In this scenehowever, we do gain even more sympathy for Macbeth. Shakespeare shows Macbeth hallucinating over the dagger, and then becoming quite worked up over the matter. Macbeth becomes more child-like and confused. He can’t tell if it is his eyes that are lying to him, or if it is all of his other senses which are deceiving him when he is imagining that there is a dagger floating in front of him. We feel sorry for him because it is as if he is mentally challenged, and a human instinct is to feel sorry for someone or something which is hurt or not normal.
Shakespeare uses lots of different types of language in this soliloquy, he uses personification, imagery, rhetorical questions, repetition, all to the advantage of winning Macbeth sympathy.
