Figurative Language in Macbeth

Simile

The comparison of two elements, where each maintains its own identity.

Example:

"My love is like a red, red rose."

Here a person is compared to a flower in a way that suggests they have certain features in common, such as beauty, fragility, and so on.

Simile from Macbeth explained

"The sleeping and the dead Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil."

-- Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 52-54

Lady Macbeth to her husband about killing those who are asleep. Lady Macbeth's comparison of the sleeping and the dead to "pictures" exemplifies her extraordinary courage and calm state of mind after the murder. Lady Macbeth should suposedly be faint-hearted because she is a woman; in reality, however, she and her husband have switched roles.

Metaphor

The merging of two elements or ideas, where one is used to modify the meaning of the other.

Example:

"The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas."

Here, the image of the moon in a cloudy night sky is merged with that of a sailing ship on stormy seas, so that some characteristics of the latter are transferred to the former.

Metaphor from Macbeth explained: part 2

"And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths."

-- Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 123-124

Banquo to Macbeth about the witches: The comparison of the witches to 'instruments of darkness' reveals their truly foul nature. Shakespeare is implying through Banquo that the honeyed prophecies of the weird sisters will only bring about Macbeth's downfall. In addition, since Macbeth listens to the witches, he can be considered an 'instrument of darkness' himself.

Figurative Language in Macbeth

Makayla Cook

Metaphor from Macbeth explained

"Fair is foul and foul is fair."

-- Act 1, Scene 1, Line 10

Part of the witches' conversation: This phrase is a metaphor that describes that state of affairs within Macbeth and without in Scotland. Evil and sinister things have taken the place of all that is good and just. Macbeth is a tyrannous ruler who consorts with witches and 'murders' sleep; the kind and venerable King Duncan and Banquo are brutally killed. In the midst of all of this, Inverness becomes a living hell for its inhabitants while Macbeth and his wife suffer from delusions and paranoia.

Imagery

Mental pictures that are conjured up when something is described. The descriptions may be direct or they may make use of various literary devices such as similes and metaphors.

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" Macbeth cries after he has killed Duncan, even as his wife scolds him and says that a little water will do the job (II. ii. 58-59). Later, though, she comes to share his horrified sense of being stained: "Out, damned spot; out, I say... who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?" She asks as she wanders through the halls of their castle near the close of the play (V. i. 30-34). Blood symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the consciences of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, one that hounds them to their graves.

Blood

Clothing

Blood is everywhere in Macbeth, beginning with the opening battle between the Scots and the Norwegian invaders, which is described in harrowing terms by the wounded captain in Act I, Scene 2. Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their murderous journey, blood comes to symbolize their guilt, and they begin to feel that their crimes have stained them in a way that cannot be washed clean.

Clothes are functioning symbolically to represent these people's stations in life- earned, or stolen. When Macbeth first hears that he's been named the Thane of Cawdor, he asks Angus why he is being dressed in 'borrowed' robes (I. iii. 7). Macbeth doesn't literally mean that he's going to wear the old thane's hand-me-down clothing. Here, 'robes' is a metaphor for the title that Macbeth doesn't think belongs to him. And later, Angus says that Macbeth's kingly 'title' is ill-fitting and hangs on him rather loosely, 'like a giant's robe / upon a dwarfish thief." (V. ii. 2).