Macbeth Speech Rhetorical Analysis: Out, Out, Brief Candle
Updated: Sep 28
Macbeth’s speech “Out, out, brief candle,” also known as "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" is one of the more famous speeches in the play Macbeth and in Shakespeare in general. The speech occurs close to the end of the play in Act 5, Scene 5, and it does a good job of revealing Macbeth’s state of mind and the final evolution of a character whose soul has been hollowed out by evil.
His speech is a reaction to news of his wife’s death. The response is cold and unemotional and is an effective contrast to his reaction to the death, or rather, killing, of King Duncan. Life to him is now devoid of value and meaning.
Despite the meaninglessness and hollowness revealed in the speech, it nevertheless shows Macbeth’s almost zombie-like or robot-like attitude to go on dealing death and destruction to his enemies. In this article, we focus more on how the speech reveals the inner world of Macbeth and how it relates to the wider themes of the play.
The speech in full and context
Below is Macbeth’s speech. It occurs in Act 5, Scene 5, close to the end of the play:
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! [5]
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. [10]
The speech is Macbeth’s reaction upon hearing that his wife has died, presumably from suicide. What is even more dramatic is that the scene occurs in the middle of a battle. Macbeth’s castle is besieged by his enemies, and the confident monarch is sure that he can withstand any siege. The announcement of his wife’s death can be seen as the first in a series of events, which serve as omens that his confidence is misplaced. But first, let’s do a rhetorical analysis of the speech.
Rhetorical analysis
The main rhetorical device is metaphor. “Tomorrow” is described as “the last syllable of recorded time,” and is also described as “creeping.” More importantly, life is compared first to an actor and then to “a tale / Told by an idiot.” Shakespeare uses metaphor to portray the meaninglessness and futility of life, at least from the perspective of Macbeth.
The sense of meaninglessness and endless repetition is introduced with simple repetition and polysyndeton (the overuse of conjunctions) at the beginning of the speech with the phrase “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” This accurately depicts a man who suffers heavily from depression and is living a purposeless life, which is the case with Macbeth.
Macbeth doesn’t gain his sense of meaninglessness from the death of Lady Macbeth, his wife. Instead, it is the consequence of the path of evil that he has chosen, and that has hollowed him out. By the death of his wife, Macbeth feels nothing, and the death of the wife, whom he had a passionate love for before his descent into evil, elicits zero emotion from him.
The table below summarizes the rhetorical devices employed in the speech:
Rhetorical Device | Definition | Example from Macbeth's Speech |
A figure of speech in which an idea is represented by something else without using “like” or “as” |
| |
The overuse of conjunctions | “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” (Line 1) | |
The repetition of the same word, but with each instance separated by other words. | “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” (Line 1) | |
The repetition of words consecutively. | “Out, out, brief candle!” (Line 5) | |
Objects being used to represent abstract ideas, concepts, or themes. | The candle in the speech is related to a wider symbolism of morality. |
One of the more interesting devices in the play is symbolism represented by the candle, which belongs to a wider motif scheme in the play, which implicates Lady Macbeth. The candle can be seen as presenting a moral conscience, which will be further explained in the next section of this article.
What the speech says about Macbeth’s character and the play’s wider themes
The speech, as mentioned earlier, reveals the fact that Macbeth’s soul is now hollowed out. The man himself explains the reason why in the scene. After hearing women wailing in distress at the death of Lady Macbeth, Macbeth is not moved and feels no fear; he says: “I have supped full with horrors.”
This is a reference to all the death and destruction that he has dealt out to gain and keep the throne of Scotland. He killed King Duncan while King Duncan slept innocently as a guest in the Macbeth household. He also hired assassins to kill Banquo, a man who was prophesied to be the father of the heir to the Scottish throne, but who was no threat to Macbeth, as Macbeth has no children.
Lastly, he kills Lady Macduff, the wife of Macduff, who flees Scotland simply to escape the chaos that Macbeth has unleashed after taking over. When Macbeth cannot find Macduff, he murders his wife, son, and all of his servants. To learn more about Macbeth’s character and themes, you can check out this prior article: Macbeth | Themes, Character Analysis, & Symbolism.
So, this is what Macbeth means when he says, “I have supped with horrors.” By the time Lady Macbeth dies, his soul has been thoroughly corrupted and consumed by evil.
The corrupting influence of evil
This stresses one of the major themes of the play, namely: “Evil corrupts, and it corrupts absolutely.” Our hero begins the play as a supremely moral man who agonizes over having to kill King Duncan to gain the throne. We can even go so far as to say that killing King Duncan, although a morally bankrupt act, was a politically pragmatic decision or an act of realpolitik. King Duncan was a powerful king with loyal allies, and declaring open rebellion against him would lead to defeat.
Therefore, Macbeth’s best bet was assassinating the king while he had the chance. This can be seen in his famous Dinner Speech scene. Please take a look at the following article for a close reading of that scene: What Is Close Reading? | Definition & Examples. This is a scene where he carefully weighs the political, moral, and spiritual consequences of killing Duncan and finally decides not to do it.
However, Lady Macbeth walks in and forces him to change his mind. While the murder of Duncan could be politically justified, the other murders of Banquo and Lady Macduff that Macbeth commits were wholly unnecessary and could be described as the corrupting influence of evil. Both Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, eventually fall victim to this influence, and this is captured in the scene where Macbeth makes his "Out, out, brief candle" speech. We learn that Lady Macbeth has died, most likely by suicide, and we witness Macbeth’s cold response to it.
Lady Macbeth commits suicide from the shame and guilt of participating in Duncan’s murder. Her guilty conscience is closely tied to the motif of light, in particular the imagery of the candle. In Act 5, Scene 1, we see her sleepwalking while a doctor and noblewoman observe her.
We learn that she always leaves a lighted candle by her bedside, and during the scene, she sleepwalks holding the candle and confesses her crime and disturbing sense of guilt and shame before these two witnesses. For more about the motifs and symbolism in Macbeth, please check out this prior article: Understanding Literary Motifs In Macbeth.
This ties into the theme of light representing goodness and morality and night symbolizing death, which is prominent in the play. Macbeth in his speech also references a candle, saying, “Out, out, brief candle!” and this can be described as Macbeth fully embracing darkness and evil. On the surface, this can be interpreted as Macbeth longing for his own death, as life now has no meaning, with the candle representing his own life.
It also has a deeper meaning, which can be related to the wider scheme of motifs and symbolism in the play. Lady Macbeth succumbs to her guilty conscience and acknowledges the immorality and regret of her descent into evil. The candle she keeps lighted at her bedside can be seen as her still clinging to what is left of her humanity.
Macbeth is the opposite. He embraces the evil and darkness completely. While his soul may be hollowed out, he is dedicated to darkness and clinging to the power that he earned through this darkness, regardless of how many more people he has to kill. In the beginning of the scene, Macbeth is confident that he can win this battle. He puts a lot of confidence in the Three Witches' prophecies that make him seem invincible.
In Act 4, Scene 1, they tell him that he will stay in power until Great Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill, where his castle is. He is also told that no man born of a woman could kill him. But he has been deceived. His enemies camouflage their advance by cutting trees and branches from Birnam Wood as they besiege Macbeth's castle on Dunsinane Hill.
This seemingly unnatural phenomenon is reported to him as soon as he learns of his wife's death, denting his confidence in his invincibility further. Act 5, Scene 8 presents Macbeth with the final blow when he learns Macduff, the man whose wife he murdered and who is part of the army besieging his castle, was not born of a woman, but instead born via caesarean section. The play ends when Macduff fights with and decapitates Macbeth. So, as mentioned earlier, the news of Lady Macbeth's death, which inspired the speech, sets the stage for Macbeth's rapid decline in fortune.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2026, September 27). Macbeth | Macbeth Speech Rhetorical Analysis: Out, Out, brief Candle. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/out-out-brief-candle-macbeth-speech |
