In this soliloquy, Macbeth expresses the despair he feels upon Lady Macbeth's death. This despair is darkened further by the sense of meaninglessness and doom as Macbeth contemplates his empty future which was once so full of promise and ambition. The juxtapositions in the passage serve to intensify this portrayal of despair.
For example, there is the juxtaposition of light versus dark. The past is marked by "lighted fools" while the future ends in the darkness of death. "Out, out, brief candle!" describes the individual's death. The interim, life, is "but a walking shadow." Darkness can signify the corruption of Macbeth's soul in the course of the play's events as well as the growing influence of the "weird sisters" (demonic forces).
Another juxtaposition is sound and silence. There are parallels in the descriptions of life as a poor player strutting upon the stage only to be "heard no more" and life as a tale told by an idiot, "full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing." In both descriptions, Shakespeare juxtaposes the sounds of a life with the silence of death. Ultimately, the noises of life mean "nothing"--just as the ambitions of Macbeth came to nothing and end in his death.
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