April 14, 2011

Starting Act 2, Scene 1

Anachronism – something that does not fit in the time period it appears in – a time-based paradox of placement

Dagger Soliloquy – we ask? Is it real? 

MACBETH	Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,	40
	She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
	Exit Servant.
	Is 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	45
	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.	50
	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,	55
	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	60
	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,	65
	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.	70
	A bell rings.
	I 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.

Option – it is real – he is seeing a supernatural, paranormal spectre or manifestation

Option – he is hallucinating – hallucination means one of a few things:

He is possibly enraptured by the possibilities – we can see what we want

Schizophrenia is a chemical disorder of the brain – creates powerful hallucinations

Sleep deprivation creates them

A few other assorted problems of the mind – this is MUCH more suggestive of a psychological reasoning for all that happens in the play

Sigmund Freud – the great psychologist and creator of psychoanalysis

Had a theory we will call the Tripartite Theory of Personality

Id –

Ego –

Superego –

Which we will discuss later.