it is already about to vanish, to slide back into nothingness.
Thereby, the horror of imagination is stronger for him than the terrors of reality: “Present fears / Are less than horrible imaginings.” (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3, l.139-140). This is what Macbeth says when – after the confirmation of the apparent1 prophecy that he would be Thane of Cawdor – for the first time, the possibility of regicide enters his mind. On the basis of this statement it again becomes clear that, in his mind, the future appears to be more ‘present’ than the here and now. Here, in the beginning of the drama, he obviously already begins to part from the real present. From this point, his grip to reality starts to dwindle away.
The decision, the plan and the thought are the essential; the realization and the action, in contrast, are only the derived. Generally, humans are moved and controlled by their ideas and wishes – Macbeth (and also Richard III), as is known, by the passionate desire for becoming king (Lüthi (1971), p.148, l.21ff.).
Since “the prophecies, of course and the speculations they arouse, drag the future into the present […]” (Honigmann, p.94, l.3-4), only what Macbeth imagines in his highest excited passion and creates as an image fulfills him and possesses reality for him, since it is now the only thing his passion circles around (see Naumann, p.381, l.6-10).
9.1.3 The Dagger Monologue and Findings Derived From It
This disparity between imagination and reality with Macbeth becomes especially clear in his, already mentioned above, dagger-monologue (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, ll.33-64) which shall therefore be discussed in more detail. It is also supposed to exemplarily stand for the other monologues in this tragedy, in which particularly Shakespeare’s art of dramatic introspection comes across in an impressive way.
Here the author presents Macbeth’s intention of killing Duncan, and thus taking over the kingship, in a way as a trance-like preparation for the deed, which has such a vividly suggestive power for him that he falls into a visionary state of feverish excitement and sees the dagger, with witch he wants to kill the king, physically float before his eyes. Hence, his imagination takes on reality for his eyes. In this vision he experiences the excessive power of imagination and desire, which creates a second reality. In the process he completely lets himself fall and now becomes one with what circulates around evil intentions in the darkness (Naumann, p.387, ll.17-30).
He is facing an illusion, but does not know whether it is a product of his mind or reality. That is why he attempts to grab the dagger, but is unable to, yet he still sees it. Being torn between taking the dagger to be true and its exposure as an illusion recurrs four times in the monologue, which thus becomes a mirror of the fierce inner battle in Macbeth himself. This awareness that he is dealing with an illusion, a self-deception, alternates with yielding to and being overwhelmed by the vision. So the own faltering, the own struggle with his warning conscience, is turned into a dialogue with an outside-perceived thing (Clemen, p.46, l.32ff.)
Thereby it is not only a sway of his power of resolution, but it is also a sway between illusion and reality. In this situation Macbeth stands before us as someone who is being deceived, someone who is lied to by his own senses. Nevertheless he suspects from the very beginning that he is being tricked. Thus he calls the dagger a “fatal vision” (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, l.36), and only two verses after, he already refers to it as “A dagger of the mind, a false creation” (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, l.38), hence as a spawn of his tortured mind (see Clemen, p.47, ll.9-20). Then again, he also seems to be fascinated by this illusion especially because of this since, on the one hand, for the first time he here becomes fully aware of it as a newly acquired ability of his power of imagination: “Or art thou but / A dagger of the mind […] Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, l.37-39); on the other hand, the evil, which this vision constitutes, has taken control of him at this point at the latest.
But in order to once more assure himself of the realness of his perception, he draws his own dagger, which the imagined dagger does not seem to be inferior to in terms of ‘tangibility’ – a symbolic gesture, since with that dagger he is about to commit the murder right after. Yet he himself knows that the illusion is not just any dagger, but the murder weapon. Besides, he feels exactly what it means when the dagger starts moving – as if it wants to show him the way to the site of the murder itself. But Macbeth has already been on that way before: “Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going“ (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, l.42 / Clemen, p.47, ll.20-32). Here, his imagination equates to the reality of his murder plot.
We know that he is now going to irrevocably follow the dagger that leads the way. With the blood, which he suddenly notices on the blade and handle of the dagger, the now following bloody deed is inevitably anticipated, even though this new vision is also guessed as an illusion: “Mine eyes are made the fools o’th’ other senses“ (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, l.44).