Macbeth Act 2 Lit Devices

Some say the earth was feverous

Personification

And, as they say, lamentings heard in the air, strange screams of death,…

Imagery

Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, which gives the sternest good night.

Metaphor

I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

Imagery

This is a sorry sight.

Pun

With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design moves like a ghost.

Allusion

…and wicked abuse, the curtained sleep.

Metaphor

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell/that summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

Couplet/Rhyming

Take thee that too.

Alliteration

A heavy summons lies like lead upon me.

Simile

Nature seems dead,…

Personification

Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder,…

Allusion

The bell invites me.

Personification

Moves like a ghost.

Simile

Whiles I threat, he lives/ Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

Couplet/Rhyming

…in seeking to augment it, but still keep my bosom franchised and allegiance clear,

Metaphor

Thou sure and firm-set earth, hear not my steps, which they walk,...

Personification & Apostrophe

There’s husbandry in heaven, their candles are all out.

Metaphor

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,…

Metaphor

That death and nature do contend about them,…

Personification & Juxtapose

And the surfeited grooms do mock their charge

Metaphor

That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,…

Paradox

As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands,…

Metaphor

…the innocent sleep,….

Personification

The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures

Simile & Metaphor

‘Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil

Metaphor

They pluck out mine eyes!

Hyperbole

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?

Allusion & Metaphor

No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.

Hyperbole & Metaphor

My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white.

Irony & Imager

A little water clears us of this deed. How easy is it then!

Irony & Imagery

So poorly in your thought.

Assonance

Come let me clutch thee.

Apostrophe

By the name of most kind hostess

Dramatic Irony

Who’s there in the name of Beelzebub?

Allusion

I know this is a joyful trouble to you

Oxymoron

…with a new Gorgon…

Allusion

As from your graves rise up

Metaphor

Walk like sprites

Simile

The expedition of my violent love

Oxymoron

Stabs looked like a breach in nature

Simile

Why do we hold our tongues

Metaphor

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere less is left this vault to brag of.

Metaphor

Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles.

Metaphor

There’s warrant in that theft/which steals itself when there’s no mercy left.

Couplet/Rhyming

Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night…

Personification

On Tuesday last a falcon towering in her pride of place was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.

Symbolism

And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.

Personification

Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!

Metaphor

God’s benison go with you and with those/that would make good of bad and friends of foes!

Couplet/Rhyming