Friday, April 10, 2015

What literary devices (conventions) are used in Shakespeare's Macbeth?Literary devices: Conventions Soliloquy Chorus Aside Dramatic

Macbeth is heavy in imagery.  Here are the main categories of images used:


  • blood

  • gender (men v. women)

  • natural vs. unnatural vs. supernatural

  • appearance vs. reality

  • animals

  • light vs. dark

  • riddles (equivocations)

  • heaven/hell

  • sickness/disease

  • clothing

He uses many equivocations: intentionally vague language ("Foul is fair; fair is foul")


Wordplay: metaphors, similes, metonymy, personification, puns, allusions, synecdoche ("there the grown serpent lies, the worm that's fled...")


Character foils: Macbeth vs. Banquo, Macduff, Duncan; the Macbeths vs. the Macduffs; doppelganger (Banquo)


Irony: dramatic and verbal (sarcasm, overstatement, understatement)

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