LRJ 4: Death

“Rebellious dead” (4.1, 97). This sentence personifies the dead and makes them seem like they can actually do things like live people can do. “My father is not dead, for all your saying./ Yes, he is dead” (4.2, 38-39). This is conversation between Lady Macduff and her son about whether or not his father is dead, meaning he is no longer with them. Macduff is alive but he is dead to them right now because he left them unprotected from Macbeth. “If he were dead, you’d weep for him;” (4.2, 64). Here the son says that if Macduff was actually dead his mom would cry. “He has killed me, mother” (4.2, 85). This is the son saying to his mother that he has been murdered and it brings negative connotations because it is a child saying that he has been murdered. “The sword of our slain kings” (4.3, 88). This shows how the knights were killed in a violent way. “Died every day she lived” (4.3, 112). Here died doesn’t mean she actually died but it means she lost the will to live a little bit every day. “The dead men’s knell/ is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives/ expire before the flowers in their caps,/ dying or ere they sicken” (4.3, 171-174). This passage talks about how good men have short lives that expire or end very quickly, faster than a flower in a cap, this comparison is a hyperbole but it gives great perspective. “Savagely slaughtered, to relate the matter/ were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,/ to add the death of you” (4.3, 206-208). This alliteration of awful words together adds to the meaning by giving it the “s” sound like a snake. Snakes are usually evil, and the words “savagely slaughtered” have a brutal gory connotation. “My wife killed too? I have said. Be comforted./ Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge/ To cure this deadly grief” (4.3, 214-216). This shows how people are affected by death, they are filled with grief because a loved one was murdered and then they transfer that grief to anger and then to revenge.