A soliloquy is ‘a discourse made ‘by one in solitude’ or in other words more commonly defined as thinking aloud. Soliloquy
is generally used to express the inner thought and feelings of a character to convey them to the audience during the course of a play. Shakespearean plays like Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet have extensive soliloquies in them, delivered by the protagonists themselves like Hamlet, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the famous soliloquy of Iago in Othello.
Soliloquy in Macbeth:
One of Shakespeare’s most evil feminine characters, Lady Macbeth is the strongest catalyst for the Macbeth committing the first murder. Lady Macbeth is shown as a vile character whose linear deterioration extends to the end of the play. This deterioration culminates into her tragic mental and her sleepwalking condition brought about by her evil deeds. She tries to attain relief from her guilt by expressing her helplessness through the soliloquies that lay her conscience bare. The soliloquies of Lady Macbeth help in getting sympathetic view from the audience though it looks like a confession of the guilt of the mind rather than the act itself. Through the soliloquies, Lady Macbeth says:
that it is truly difficult to interpret what is really fair and good and what is foul and evil. For what was prophesised as ostensibly good fortune, exhibits disastrous effects and good fortune seems far away from it. Those wicked witches have played upon my dear husband’s aspirations and my desire for rank, as though we are just puppets and they are like the puppeteers. The witches had prophesised the good fortune, but why didn’t they warn us of the price to pay at the end of it all. The instigated my dear husband knowing only too well that destruction lies ahead of the pursuit of all the foolish desires of the world of exaggeration of the supernatural. My ambition and my desire is to attain the unattainable and oh god please help me to rid this thirst for power. And now, having drunk the poison of ambition, I have committed a crime. But I am sure God know that it was the Prophecy that has made me do it and that my loyalty to my husband inspired me to committed this heinous crime.