Macbeth

• ”Stars hide your fires let not light see my black and deep desires“ - Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 4


  1. ”Stars hide your fires” - in the Jacobean Era, people believed that the stars were God’s candles to see the earth at night
  2. His hamartia is shown here
  3. Foreshadows Macbeth killing Duncan later on
  4. “Fires” and “Desires” are a rhyming couplet and relates to the Witches
  5. Shows him being duplicitous in his soliloquy
• “Too full of the milk of human kindness” - Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 5


  1. Symbolism - milk is white and white has connotations to purity
  2. Suggests that Lady Macbeths doubts Macbeth’s ability to kill King Duncan
  3. Emasculates Macbeth
• “O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!” - King Duncan in Act 1 Scene 2


  1. “Valiant“ means brave
  2. ”Cousin” reminds us of the royal lineage that Macbeth is apart of
• “Brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name” - the bleeding Captain from Act 1 Scene 2


  1. Shows his bravery
• “With brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution“ - the bleeding Captain in Act 1 Scene 2


  1. Alliteration - the “b” sound in “brandished” and “bloody” draws attention to the harshness of the scene which emphasises the brutality of the action
  2. Imagery - “smoked” and “bloody execution“ help visualise the battle
  3. Personification - the “sword which smoked” gives a lifelike quality to the weapon as if it’s alive in the violent conflict
• “Disdaining fortune” - The bleeding Captain in Act 1 Scene 2


  1. Macbeth defies fate
• “Look how our partner’s rapt” - Banquo in Act 1 Scene 3


  1. Shows how focused/interested Macbeth is with the witches and begins to show his ambition for the crown (his hamartia)
  2. ”rapt” means to be completely fascinated or absorbed by what one is seeing or hearing
• ”I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself” - Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 7


  1. “spur” means a thing that prompts or encourages someone; an incentive
  2. “vaulting” means to jump over
  3. He has no incentive other than his ambition to kill Duncan but first he must jump over some obstacles
• “We’ll proceed no further in this business” - Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 7


  1. Shows that he feels guilty
• “We fail?” - Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 7


  1. Interrogative sentence
  2. Macbeth is doubting that they would succeed
• “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” - Macbeth in Act 2 Scene 1


  1. Is hallucinating the daggers. This shows the start of his paranoia
  2. Rhetorical question
• “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?” - Macbeth in Act 2 Scene 2


  1. Neptune is the Roman god of the seas and oceans
  2. Is guilty for killing Duncan
  3. Rhetorical question shows him losing his mind
  4. Macbeth believes that there is enough blood to make the oceans red
  5. Juxtaposition - juxtaposes Lady Macbeth‘s quote on “A little water clears us from this deed”
• “To know my deed ‘twere best not to know myself” - Macbeth in Act 2 Scene 2


  1. Macbeth is aware that he has disrupted the Great Chain of Being and the Divine Right of Kings and is feels guilty
  2. Could suggest that Macbeth would rather be dead than to be alive and suffer the guilt