Macbeth Argumentative Essay
Many words in this passage suggest that Macbeth is only fantasizing about murder. First, he refers to his thoughts as a suggestion, meaning that he is not certain that he will murder Duncan. Then, he calls his thoughts as a "horrid image" and as "horrible imaginings". The words suggestion, image, and imaginings all imply that Macbeth only has a guilty mind, or mens rea. None of his ideas are concrete yet because he is so anxious and perplexed by them. At this point, he is still unsure if he will actually kill Duncan, and he is so unsure that he does not even directly mention that he will murder Duncan. In addition, Macbeth says that his thought is "fantastical", which means that his thoughts are only fantasy at this point. Curran claims this line ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...Thought and action are two completely different and contradicting concepts, and Curran fails to make the link between the two. In other words, he fails to explain how the thought is equivalent to the action. Although the distinction is subtle, it is a very important one: here, there are many key words in this passage that clearly indicate that Macbeth is only having murderous thoughts at this point. However, the thought is converted into action later on in the play when Macbeth physically kills Duncan.
Another flaw in Curran's argument is that he assumes that the dagger that Macbeth imagines in Act 2 Scene 1 is a precursor to Macbeth's awareness of his own criminality. Specifically, Curran refers to the dagger as the "intentional object" that "creates the very conditions of sentience" and "catalyzes Macbeth's consciousness of his own criminality" (Curran 393). Here, Curran uses Husserlian phenomenology to claim that the thing and the thought are not separable because the thing creates the thought. In other words, Curran contends that the dagger led to Macbeth's feelings of criminality. However, evidence from
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