Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight? or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
Act II, Scene 1 · Macbeth
Context
Still staring at the dagger, Macbeth questions whether it's real or a hallucination. He wonders if he's seeing an actual supernatural vision or if his troubled mind is producing the image.
Analysis
Macbeth offers two explanations—'fatal vision' versus 'false creation'—but the word 'fatal' poisons both options, meaning either deadly or fated. Even as he tries to rationalize the dagger as a symptom of his 'heat-oppressed brain,' he can't escape the sense that it's leading him toward an unavoidable outcome, so his attempt at skepticism becomes another form of surrender.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Macbeth's rationality is collapsing under pressure—he frames the question as supernatural versus psychological, but he's already committed to murder either way, so the dagger's reality doesn't actually matter.