The main ideas in the speech

What makes this a great passage is the way in which the speech draws together themes and images that have been brewing throughout the play: ambition, fate, time, terrible decisions, life, death, authenticity, fakeness, meaning.

If we look closely we can break this snippet into four parts:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth(1606)

At it's heart, this passage is about about disappointment with life.

The snippet breaks down into:

  • The experience of life—how does it feel at its most disappointing? 
    • (It feels like a creeping petty pace of days.)
  • Where it ends—where does this experience lead?
    • (It leads fools to make bad decisions until they die.)
  • A metaphor to capture this—what is this all like?
    • (It's like a poor actor who walks onto a dark stage, makes a big noise for a short while, and then disappears.)
  • Another metaphor, extending on the first—what else is this like?
    • (It's also like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.)

So to get into writing our own version of this, let's choose something we can express extreme disappointment about.

What is something you have been or could be disappointed in? (Or an imagined character—you don't have to write from your own point of view!)

You could choose something big, like life, death, infinity etc—but your variation will likely work better if you choose something smaller and more concrete, even trivial and mundane.

Here are a couple of examples of brainstorming notes:

Small things: Rude customers at the KFC drive-thru; Allergic to detergents; Dog won’t stop peeing indoors; Pen doesn't work

About life: Feeling that you are always running and get nowhere; feeling confused and lost; realising life's not orderly like school; feeling that everything falls apart, nothing lasts forever

Brainstorm some things that you or an imagined character could be disappointed about. You can go as big as life itself, but you might find small disappointments work better.