Read the given lines and correctly identify the figure of speech used…

The correct answer is Option (2) → Hyperbole and Allusion

Hyperbole and allusion:

• The lines are spoken by Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act 2, Scene 2), just after he has murdered King Duncan.
• Deciding clue: "The multitudinious seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red" (an impossible claim, so hyperbole) and "Neptune" (a figure from Roman myth, so allusion).
• Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration for effect, not meant to be taken literally. Macbeth says that the whole ocean cannot wash the blood from his hand. Instead, his bloody hand would turn the countless seas incarnadine (blood-red), "making the green one red". The exaggeration shows the enormity of his guilt.
• Allusion is a brief reference to a well-known person, place, story or myth, which the reader is expected to recognise. Neptune is the Roman god of the sea. "Great Neptune's ocean" calls up all the oceans of the world.

Why the Other Options are Incorrect?

Option 1: Metaphor and Oxymoron — Incorrect.

• A metaphor says that one thing is another, without "like" or "as". The lines exaggerate, they do not identify one thing with another.
  Example: Time is a thief.
• An oxymoron joins two words of opposite meaning. No such pair appears in the lines.
  Example: There was a deafening silence in the hall.

Option 3: Personification and Antithesis — Incorrect.

• Personification gives human qualities to something that is not human. The ocean and the hand are not given human qualities.
  Example: The wind whispered through the trees.
• Antithesis places opposite ideas side by side in a balanced form. The colour change "green ... red" is part of the exaggeration, not a balanced contrast of ideas.
  Example: To err is human, to forgive divine.

Option 4: Irony and Metonymy — Incorrect.

• Irony is a contrast between what is said or expected and what is meant or happens. Macbeth means what he says.
  Example: The fire station burnt down.
• Metonymy uses the name of a closely linked thing for the thing itself. The lines use no such substitute name.
  Example: The crown announced new taxes.