Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect; / Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, / As broad and general as the casing air: / But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears.
Act III, Scene 4 · Macbeth
Context
Macbeth learns from the murderer that Banquo is dead but Fleance has escaped. This news shatters Macbeth's sense of security at the banquet he is hosting.
Analysis
The piled-up alliterative verbs—'cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd'—all near-synonyms denoting enclosure, mimic the feeling of walls closing in. Each word tightens the sonic and semantic space, making Macbeth's anxiety feel claustrophobic. By contrasting his present state with vast images like 'marble' and 'the casing air,' Macbeth reveals that his tyranny has trapped rather than freed him.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Macbeth's power becomes its own prison—the claustrophobic repetition here shows that each murder narrows rather than expands his sense of control.