Macbeth reacts to the news that his wife is dead by
feeling that existence is meaningless. Everything he, or anyone else does is
meaningless.
He compares life to an actor's brief career
on stage. An actor is famous for a short while and then disappears from the stage and
is never heard from again. All is meaningless.
Macbeth's
initial reaction to the bad news is that there would have been a better time for his
wife to die--later on, when she was older and death expected. The play's present is not
the time for her to die. Her death is premature.
He moves
from this thought into the idea that nothing anyone does amounts to anything anyway.
His nihilism is expressed through the theatrical metaphor, as well as the statement that
humans are just "lighted fools" and all of our actions lead only to
death.
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