Figures of speech in Macbeth – Flashcards
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Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day
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Personification: Time "runs"
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Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desire
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Apostrophe: addressing something that cannot answer
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They were as cannons overcharged with double cracks
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Simile: Macbeth and Banquo are being compared to cannons that are loaded with much gunpowder and shot with great power
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Yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full of the milk of human kindness
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Metaphor: Macbeth's nature can be a vessel that can hold human kindness
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Come thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
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Apostrophe: addressing the night, which cannot answer Personification: the night "dressing"
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Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath
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Metaphor: comparing to an innocent flower and serpent
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Screw your courage to sticking place, and we'll not fail
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Metaphor: he's comparing courage to something that can be handled
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Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee...
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Apostrophe: addressing something that cannot talk back
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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
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Personification: bell "invites" Apostrophe: addressing the absent Duncan
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The attempt and not the deed, confounds us
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Personification: the attempt is confounding Macbeth
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'T is the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil
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Metonymy- eye for the whole person Personification- eye "fears"
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...and drink sir, is a great provoker of three things
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Personification: drinks provokes
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Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, and put a barren sceptre in my grip
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Personification: barren sceptre, fruitless crown. Synecdoche: "head" and "grip" for Macbeth's lie
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We have scotched the snake, not killed it
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Metaphor- Duncan's progeny is a snake
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And you all know security is mortals chiefest enemy
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Personification: security can't be an enemy
