Having heard the melancholy Jaques describe the ‘Seven Ages of Man’ we now find Shakespeare reflecting on the apparent meaninglessness of life. Again the comparison between the role of the actor and of real life is made.
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” is the beginning of the second sentence of one of the most famous soliloquies in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. It takes place in the beginning of the 5th scene of Act 5, during the time when the Scottish troops, led by Malcolm and Macduff, are approaching Macbeth’s castle to besiege it. Macbeth, the play’s protangonist, is confident that he can withstand any siege from Malcolm’s forces. He hears the cry of a woman and reflects that there was a time when his hair would have stood on end if he had heard such a cry, but he is now so full of horrors and slaughterous thoughts that it can no longer startle him.
Seyton then tells Macbeth of Lady Macbeth’s death, and Macbeth delivers this soliloquy as his response to the news. Shortly afterwards, he is told of the apparent movement of Birnam Wood towards Dunsinane Castle (as the witches had prophesied to him), which is actually Malcolm’s forces having disguised themselves with tree branches so as to hide their numbers as they approach the castle. This sets the scene for the final events of the play and Macbeth’s death at the hands of Macduff.
Macbeth speaks to indicate that another day in his life would be just a futile and monotonous crawl towards the inescapable end, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day”. In this soliloquy, Macbeth mourns his meaningless life, and the time after his wife’s death. He states that life is full of events and action, however absurd, and short, and completely meaningless at the end.
After his wife dies, time seems to Macbeth an intolerable burden, and the future an overwhelming force that leads him to his destiny. This is directly opposite of the conventional and easy future he had fantasized about having with his wife before murdering King Duncan. After the death of Lady Macbeth, he feels his future is hopelessly tedious, and empty, while life looks ridiculously short.
When Macbeth hears that his wife is dead, he expresses his indifference to the occasion. For him, death is merely a last act of a bad play, and like an idiot’s story, full of melodrama and bombast, but meaningless. Killing King Duncan, taking his throne, and now viewing all this as past memories, seems to be the scene of a well-planned script. If human life is a bad play, then it is an illusion – just a shadow spread by a candle, which is perhaps the soul, and hence a prediction for the life of Macbeth is grim.
