Act 2, Scene 1, Flying Dagger

Rebecca, Charlotte, Robyn, Kyle Leigh, and Eli

Act 2 Scene 1 Context and Summary

After discussing with Lady Macbeth, Macbeth has decided to go through with the crime of murdering King Duncan. As he sits by himself waiting for the bell to call him to Duncan, he ponders one final time about his decision to go through with the act. He imagines a dagger floating in front of him, which introduces the audience to his powerful imagination for the first time. This imagination ultimately becomes responsible for the mental torment he experiences later in the play. The appearance of this dagger unsettles Macbeth, and he is only snapped from his illusion by the sound of Lady Macbeth's bell.

Part OneIs 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, sensibleTo 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 palpableAs this which now I draw. Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;And such an instrument I was to use.

Literary Devices:• Rhyming • Consonance• Anaphora• Imagery- "heat-oppressed

brain"- fevered, stress and pressure

Overall meaning:• First line he questions

whether he actually sees it• Realizes he is imagining it• The hallucination does not

seem to cause him to question his plan to use a dagger- last line

Part TwoMine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses, else worth all the rest; I see thee still,               And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:It is the bloody business which informsThus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one halfworldNature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuseThe curtain’d sleep;

• personifies his senses; idea that either Macbeth's sight is fooled by other senses, or that his sight is the only reliable sense

• dudgeon: wooden handle• Notes that he can still see the

dagger, but then says to himself  that there is no real dagger (use of caesura)

• Dagger is present because the idea of murder is causing him to see one; alliteration of bloody business

• Half of the world is asleep and taunted by evil nightmares

• curtain'd refers to the curtains drawn around a four post bed, which was standard in Elizabethan time

Part Threewitchcraft celebrates                 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 designMoves like a ghost.

• More examples of evil happenings at night, shows Macbeth's acknowledgement that this is bad

• Hecate is the goddess of sorcery, seems to rule over witches. She is associated with the moon

• Murder is personified• Tarquin alludes to Roman prince

of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece

• Devices include:o symbolismo allusiono simile and metaphoro personification 

Part Four

Hear not my steps,                                                      which way they walk, for fearThy 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 breathgives.

• Shows blatant fear of getting caught by Man.

• The noise of the stones amplify his fear yet free Macbeth from eerily dreadful silence.

• Macbeth knows that, although those around him are unaware of his crimes, that God is witnessing his every move. (The stones earth a creation of God, is directly interfering)

• Just speaking and deliberating the action of murder is turning him off from committing the act further, showing that he does understand that it is a morally          repulsive deed. 

• Caesura signifies the ultimate decision Macbeth makes.

 Part Five For Whom the Bell Tolls

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 hell.

Although conflicted, Macbeth is resigned to his plan of action and seems almost wearied by his own corruption.

Contributions to Work

• First incidence of Macbeth’s hallucinations• Indicates the guilt and mental torment he will

later feel that will eventually drive him to madness

•Hints at the consequences that a crime may have on the person who commits it