Idea: Brevity of life/meaninglessness
Language: Metaphor
Use of Meter
Repetition
Alliteration
Shakespeare, in his tragedy Macbeth is preoccupied with the relationship between humanity and the forces in life beyond our control. Macbeth who has just learned of his wife’s untimely death considers his life to be “like a walking shadow”. It is in use of metaphor, and the interplay between symbols of light and dark, that shakespeare communicates his idea of the nature of death. In his metaphor “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more” Shakespeare is.