Macbeth Quote Analysis

Alone in a lobby of his castle while Duncan dines nearby, Macbeth begins weighing whether to go through with the murder, speaking his thoughts aloud.

The repetition of 'done' three times in two lines creates a circling, obsessive rhythm—Macbeth cannot name the act directly, so the word becomes a placeholder that both refers to murder and avoids saying it. This compulsive repetition mimics how someone talks themselves into something they know is wrong: the more he says it, the less real it sounds, as if language could make the crime disappear the moment it happens.

Use this to argue that Macbeth's language breaks down under moral pressure—his inability to name 'murder' outright shows he already knows he cannot cleanly separate the act from its consequences, no matter how quickly it's 'done.'