Macbeth Soliloquy

Even in the coolest breeze your body will turn to a ferocious sweat, your face starts burning an inferno red yet looks a ghastly white, your heart may skip a few hundred beats and you begin to feel it in your throat, the pounding intensifies with every step you take and your feet feel cemented to the ground, unable to blink, turn back and erase what you have done, everything from this point on is a downward spiral and it is too late to undo your actions, the word regret haunts you eternally. In the soliloquy, found in Act I, scene vii of Shakespeare's Macbeth servants can be found scurrying inside the castle to prepare the table for the evening's feast with the King while Macbeth, Shakespeare's title character, hesitantly paces debating the assassination of the King. A prophecy has unveiled that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and Macbeth is hurried into a predicament where his future is at stake. Throughout this Soliloquy Macbeth's struggle within himself, his respect for the king, and his eternal fear of regret reveals his uneasy and apprehensive attitude towards the King's assassination.

Macbeth's soliloquy before the murder of Duncan shows the vigorous internal struggle of himself, on the one hand his ambition spurs him to strive for power and on the other his conscious resists the urge; disclosing how Macbeth will eventually bring his own downfall upon himself. It is clear from the previous scenes that Macbeth portrays many of the traditional attributes of a tragic hero; courage, intelligence, moral awareness, potential, social status and a good reputation. He also possesses many characteristics of a villain namely his harmatia which is his ambition and weakness to temptation. When Macbeth is presented in such a complicated predicament where he has to decide between moralities and personal growth, and his strong ambition and feeble resistance to temptation presents his conflict. Thoughts at the beginning of the soliloquy are his first, which is palpable through the haphazard way in which they are expressed; it opens with a euphemism of the word murder: "If it were done." Because murderous thoughts are alien to him, naturally Macbeth manipulates his ideas into this euphemism. Macbeth is portrayed by the language to be a very moral and conscientious man. The euphemisms show that the "horrid deed" abhors him, because he knows that regicide is a cardinal sin. Macbeth continues on his rampage saying that "if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success; that but this blow might be the be-all and the end-all here". He finds himself struggling with his conscience over the possibility of regicide, yet focuses more on the consequences, unearthing the fact that if he could get away with the murder he would. He is concerned that the consequences he would face are vast, and that there are many reasons why he should not murder Duncan, yet he has made no decision as to whether "the deed" will be undertaken. Macbeth's permanent conscious demonstrates his apprehension. By the end of the Soliloquy Macbeth's decision is that his only motivation towards regicide is his ambition. Macbeth parallels his ambition to a horse, in the face of being powerful, he can still "overleap" himself or be over ambitious leading to his "fall on the other[s]". Macbeth's character has fallen to the point where he has the desperate courage to commit the murder, but is afraid of the unavoidable consequences of regicide.

Macbeth truly respects the King, his loyalty and descriptions of Duncan's noble qualities contradict a strong will to murder him; revealing his apprehensive attitude towards actually following through with the assassination. Before pointing out how the population's trust in the King as a leader, Macbeth remembers the trust he has earned from the King, remarking the "he's here in double trust" considering he is "his kinsman and his subject". As Macbeth recognizes he should be trying to protect the King being a courageous and honorable general in Scotland, and especially as his host, it is retained how grave an outrage it is for the couple to slaughter their ruler while he is a guest in their house, which makes Macbeth guilt stricken. Murdering a respected individual for selfish reasons would not only strip one's innocence but their liveliness as well. Macbeth feels rushes of this sensation as he lists the exceptional qualities of King

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