Month: November 2016

SEMANTIC
Macbeth is mourning over the death of his wife and is coming to the conclusion that there is no point in living.
CONTEXT
Macbeth’s wife has died, there is an army outside of his castle, and the thought of it is sending his mind into a frenzy.
FIGURATIVE DEVICES
“Life’s but a walking shadow, poor player” – Personification. This personification emphasises Macbeth’s emotions as it portrays his life as invalid, and worthless. “A walking shadow” makes him sound as if he has no purpose and that he isn’t appreciated by anybody that surrounds him. It gives the audience an insight on how he is feeling, not just on the inside, but on the outside too.

Note: The idea of the script turning into a reality. Two parallel worlds, Shakespeare reaching out to the audience by describing Macbeth’s depression.

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
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.

Shakespeare uses many different techniques to present Macbeth’s deteriorating state of mind to the audience. The semantic aspect of the text is that Macbeth is mourning over the death of his wife and is coming to the conclusion that there is no point in living. Whilst his emotions are getting the better of him, there is an army of traitors awaiting outside of his castle. Shakespeare does his best to project Macbeth’s eruption through a series of dramatic devices, ranging from metaphors and personification to the iambic pentameter that he follows throughout the majority of his speech in the play.

Shakespeare uses Macbeth’s state of mind to communicate his own emotions to the audience. It is almost like two parallel worlds, in one of them, Macbeth is releasing his emotions and communicating his thoughts to the audience. In the other, Shakespeare is telling a story through Macbeth’s ideology.

Metaphors are used constantly throughout the play, especially by Macbeth himself. When Macbeth is informed about Lady Macbeth’s death, he uses metaphors to enhance his emotions.

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player”

The quote above describes Macbeth’s attitude towards life after the death of his wife. It incorporates

Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 into a middle class German-speaking Ashkenazi Jewish family. Back in those days German language was considered the vehicle of social mobility. His father was a very dominant figure with a huge appetite for business. Kafka and his siblings were mostly brought up by governesses and servants. His childhood was a very lonely one. The relationship he had with his father was a troubled one. His father was an authoritarian and extremely demanding and that had a profound influence later on, on Kafka’s writing.

He pursued high education which later led him into respectable employment, to please his father. He found himself being very unhappy working the hours as this was preventing him from having the time to concentrate on his writing.

Metamorphosis is one of his most seminal bodies of work.

In it, the main character Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning, finding himself metamorphosed into a large monstrous insect like creature. The novel deals with a burden imposed upon the family members to deal with the situation as well as Gregor’s attempts to adjust to this horrific change.

Kafka himself never gave any explanation regarding the transformation and the reasons behind it were never revealed but there are many possible interpretations to it.

There is a great deal of symbolism in Metamorphosis. Maybe he feels alienated and not appreciated by those around him, hence the transformation? Maybe by turning into an insect he prevents himself returning to a job he hates, allowing himself more freedom to do what he actually loves doing? Is it perhaps only a dream or a nightmare? Could it be a form of self-sacrifice? Or even a way to be finally free? Or maybe a sort of a punishment for the family? There is definitely a cause and effect argument going through it. The interpretations are endless and surreal, as the novel itself is. What Kafka produced in Metamorphosis is most certainly way above realism.

MACBETH

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Exit ServantIs 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-oppressed 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. Now o’er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s offerings, and wither’d murder,
Alarum’d 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.
A bell ringsI 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.
Exit

The use of metaphors is extremely common in this soliloquy. Some examples of metaphors within this passage are :

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-oppressed brain?

1. Fatal Vision : Macbeth describes the imagery of the dagger as a “fatal vision”, meaning that it could be a clear indication that his fate is to murder the King. The adjective; “fatal”, is extremely effective in this context as it shows that the vision of the dagger will not only do damage to the King, but to Macbeth too.
2. Dagger of the mind: The dagger of the mind is a more obvious metaphor within this passage. It relates to Macbeth contemplating whether the dagger is real or not.  The dagger of the mind could also mean that something is doing harm to his brain. A suggestion to what it could be is Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth could be the dagger of his mind as she is leading him on the wrong path (to murder the King).
3. Heat oppressed brain: This metaphor describes Macbeth’s mental state. “Heat oppressed” could portray how much his brain has had to handle over the last couple of weeks, therefore leading to the reasoning of the hallucination of the dagger.