Author: Eltom

Macbeth’s mental state has deteriorated over a period of time ever since he assassinated of the humble king Duncan who he was reluctant to kill due to his kindness and appreciation towards him.Macbeth was convinced to commit this act due his wife’s greed and persistence in the matter. An example of where shown “When you do it,” she says, “then you were a man”. By this she is trying to psychologically manipulate Macbeth’s egotistical individualism. Macbeth’s deteriorating sate of mind is essential to Shakespeare message Don’t take what you want just because you want it, it can be argued that this message is not the main one but there are multiple different meanings to the story , the one I have chosen is most relevant to my essay. ‘Don’t take what you want just because you want it’  the process of Macbeth’s degenerative state of mind started post him assassinating king Duncan in cold blood.

Shakespeare

I will analyse both the extract below and the whole text:

MACBETH
“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 multiple different writing techniques to show Macbeth’s deteriorating state of mind. To begin with I will explore how he uses metaphors to reveal Macbeth’s deteriorating state of mind.Macbeth is portrayed as depressed post his wife’s death, this is seen in the phrase ‘Life is but a walking shadow’. This is an example of a metaphor embedded into the text to signify Macbeth’s deteriorating state of mine. By referring to life as a shadow you can infer that life at the moment is meaningless, like a shadow. By Shakespeare using the phrase walking shadow instead of just shadow he could mean that life goes on but its meaningless.This phrase gives the reader a feel of what Macbeth is feeling and his mental state at the time.Shakespeare uses this metaphor to compare life for Macbeth’s to something commonly understood by the audience.

I have to get rid of the prince of Cumberland or get past him somehow to become king because he’s the only thing in my way from becoming king.
God stop looking at me do not see my deep and dark desires.I don’t want to remember what I must do to become king.

The metaphor I have chosen is

‘Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, which smoked with bloody execution’

Here below is this phrase translated into contemporary english

‘Disrespecting fortune with his sword’

Now

The mere thought of your GCSEs sends a shiver down your spine. You begin to let pessimistic scenarios cloud your chain of thought. After seemingly minutes of conversing with your inner self you finally snap out of the mental torture a single word has caused you.You cautiously cross the guarded gate hiding your empty top button. Once you pass you are faced with the reality of 6 1/2 hours of boredom and that drains every last bit of optimism about your day. The deafening bell rings and you are ordered to get to your first lesson. The foul smelling, weeks old urine makes your journey the hardest task you have ever been faced with. A gang of psychotic pre teenagers rampage down the corridor attracted to a childish fight, only source of entertainment

Then

The mention of school makes you eagerly anticipated to start a new  school day.As you approach the school gate your pace begins to speed up as you look forward to meeting your friends and learning something new. You enthusiastically raise your hand to answer the question asked by your teacher and you get it right, right then at that moment you forget everything else and feel like you’re on top of the world. The  heavenly smell of the delicious school meals meets you half way through the corridor. The race has begun. You can hear the dozens of children screaming and running to be first in line for lunch.

Chapters 38-40

Pip spends a lot more time with Estella in her London house with her hostess Mrs Brandley. He watches her mistreat her suitors, but she does not treat him the same. Pip later realises that drummle is Estellas court. Pip is furious so he goes and confronts Estella as he thought they were destined to be together. She reminds him that he is the only suitor that she does not deceive or trick. He then feels depressed and sad at this fact.

Pip is now 23 years old. One night while pip is in his room a sailor comes to him pip treats him then he realises that he is the convict from the marshes who mistreated him and terrorised him when he was a little kid. He tells pip that after their meeting he went to Australia and worked at a ranch he made a fortune. He sent pip a yearly amount making him pips benefactor not miss havisham and then pip realised that he was not meant to marry Estella. Pip is heart broken and sad but he hears that the convict is on the run from the law again and it he was caught he would be put to death. He then thinks that the convict is his responsibility so he feeds him and gives him a bed for the night Herbert’s as he is away for the day.

In the morning pip trips over a shadowy man on his staircase so he goes and gets he watchman. He created an alias by the name of magwitch or pips uncle provis. He then calls on jaggers to co nfirm his story incase anyone asks. Magwitch is a very bad Josue guest without table manners and rough speech he is a bad guest.

Chapters 36-37

Pips 21st birthday finally comes he is excited and certain that his becoming an adult he will be told the identity of his benefactor. But jaggers refuses to tell him the identity and he informs him that he will be allowed 500 pounds a year. Pip invites jaggers to come to his birthday dinner, but all he does is depress the environment.

Once pip is given his income he helps Herbert into his merchant business. Wemmick advises pip not to lend his friends money as the can make a habit of coming to him when they are in need of money. But later on he agrees to help pip with Herbert’s business which pip asked wemmicks advice on.
Everything is arranged anonymously so that Herbert like pip does not know the identity of his benefactor.

Chapters 20-26

Jaggers takes pip to london where he likes and dislikes london simultaneously.While he is there he meets jaggers clerk wemmick.

Wemmick inteoduces pip to herbert pocket who he spends the night with. Pip likes herbert but ge realised yhat he is the same pale young gentleman he fought with at satis house.

Pip asks herbert to help him to become a gentle man herbert instantly points out pips poor table manners. He gives pip the nickname handel and tells him about miss havisham. He tells him about her fiance which was supposed to marry ger but never turned up and he sent a letter at 20 minutes to 9 which is when she stopped all pf ger clocks. She later adopted Estella.

The next day pip visits the royal exchange before going to mathew pockets house to be tutored.
Pip concentrates on his table manners and he watches the pockets chaotic lives.

Pip returns to jaggers house where he arranges to stay in the same room as herbert. There pip befriends the lively wemmick who he begins to like who then invites him over for dinner. Pip sees jaggers in the courtroom who scares and dominates the room and even the judge seems intimidated by him.

Pip then continues to know his fellow students and the pockets pip has visited both jaggers and wemmicks houses and where wemmick seems depressed and angry at work at home he seems happy and active.

By contrast jaggers house is gloomy and depressing. Pip and drummle go to visit jaggers at his house for dinner where the both argue over a loan drummle took from star top. Jaggers tells pip to stay away from drummle when though he himself likes him.

Biddy goes to stay with Mrs Joe and Joe. Pip goes to miss Havishams but then soon realizes how bad the atmosphere is without Estella. Then pip tells Biddy about his love for Estela when he clearly is in love with biddy. Biddy then warns pip not to go to miss Havishams but pip goes thinking that it is due to her jealousy.

At the pub one evening, Pip sits in a crowd listening to Wopsle read the story of a murder trial from a newspaper. A stranger begins questioning Wopsle about the legal details of the case. Pip recognizes him as the large, dark man he met on the stairs at Miss Havisham’s. The stranger introduces himself as the lawyer Jaggers, and he goes home with Pip and Joe. Here, he explains that Pip will soon inherit a large fortune. His education as a gentleman will begin immediately. Pip will move to London and become a gentleman, he says, but the person who is giving him the fortune wishes to remain secret: Pip can never know the name of his benefactor.

Pip begins working in joes forge and he hates working with joe but he continues to work there due to Joes kindness towards him. As he works he sees estella mocking him and he longs for satis house.

pip then tries to improve Joe as a whole so he tries to teach him to read and write. Pip tries to go to miss Havishams house but then Joe convinces him to leave miss Havisham but pip insists and does as he pleases.

Miss Havisham got attacked but then and the convicts with leg irons were suspected he gets scared. Then Mrs Joe begins to write a T on her slate repeatedly. Pip thinks that the t represents a hammer but biddy believes that the t is referring to orlick so she calls him then over a few days she continue to summon orlick.

Joe visits Satis house to complete the apprenticeship papers but due to his rough speech and his bad dress sense he gets laughed and mocked by Estella. Then Mrs Joe and Joe go to the town hall to confirm the apprenticeship then they all go out to celebrate.