In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, act 1 scene 5, Lady Macbeth believes that she should hold the throne and is wanting to become / take on the the traits of a man. she also thinks that Macbeth is to weak kill the king even though in act 1 scene 4 Macbeth talks about his deepest desires and how he does not with to have these dark thoughts of killing the king. Shakespeare uses these two metaphors to convey the idea of Lady Macbeth being cynical and evil shown in the quote of lady Macbeth below.

” And fill me crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty ! ”

in this line she believes that she is talking to the evil spirits beyond our world or witches and is asking to be like a bottle or cup and is wanting to be filled by the witches hateful / evil emotions and nothing else. we can tell that this is a metaphor used to interpretat that she is a container and she is wanting to be filled and filled up with a liquid, although the liquid is a emotion is gives a imagery of darkness and it pouring itself into her. she also seems to let go of any other emotions and is not wanting any other natural emotions because she believes it will waver her in her task, in the lines

“stop the access and passage to remorse; that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between th’ effect and it ! ”

From this line we can tell that she not wanting to let in these other emotions and the imagery of this is like a knife or hole in her container that will let out these hatful emotions. This metaphor is used to show how she is not wanting remorse or human emotions to stop her in her path of becoming queen by killing the king.

From shakespeare’s Macbeth ,act 1 scene 5, we can tell these two metaphors that Lady Macbeth is wanting to let go of all of her previous emotions like remorse, fear and all round natural emotions. she is wanting to become more of a man so that she is able to manipulate Macbeth so he can do her bidding. I believe that the reason lady Macbeth is wanting to do this is because she is wanting to become queen but we have no insight why she is wanting to do this, she also believes that the only way to do this is by killing the king.

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  1. This is a clear and detailed analysis of the action of these metaphors in the passage. The next step is to explore why Shakespeare selected these language effects in particular. What connotations was he trying to create?

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