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How Does Shakespeare Use Diction In Macbeth

Decent Essays

In Macbeth’s dagger soliloquy, Shakespeare uses diction to establish that Macbeth is personally justifying his actions of going to commit the murder by displacing the responsibility.
Within the soliloquy, Macbeth speaks of Murder as if he is a person. Shakespeare’s use of the word “his”, when referring to Murder, personifies Murder. This is Macbeth’s way of saying that it is Murder itself who commits the crime, and not Macbeth. On line 55, Shakespeare uses the word “design”. Design in this context is used to represent the act of the murder. It speaks of Murder moving towards his design, which makes killing someone sound not as awful. This shows Macbeth is justifying his actions by saying it is an entirely different force other than himself moving …show more content…

Subsequently, when a bell rings, Macbeth recognizes this as Lady Macbeth’s signal that it is time for him to go and murder Duncan. Line 62 reads, “the bell invites me.” This again shows the personification of an inanimate object; the bell is given the ability to invite. Instead of Macbeth placing the responsibility of calling him forth on Lady Macbeth, he places it on the bell. He is again placing the blame on something else, just as he did earlier when referring to Murder. Another use of diction Shakespeare uses in that line is the word “invite”. The word “invite” has a friendly and warm connotation to it, unlike the act of murder. The use of invite in this context is another example of Macbeth justifying his actions. Instead of saying “the bell tells me it’s time”, Shakespeare says, “the bell invites me”, which therefore

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