Quotes and Analysis

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


  Macbeth commands the natural world to hide his evil intentions from God, suggesting his awareness of the blasphemous consequences
• "False face must hide what the false heart doth know" - Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7


  -Appearance vs reality

  -Macbeth must use deception and hide his true intentions to successfully carry out his plot
• "Only vaulting ambition" - Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7


  Macbeth openly acknowledges his tragic flaw -hamartia- of relentless ambition as his sole motivation for planning to murder King Duncan
• "Is this a dagger which I see before me?" - Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1


  -Rhetorical question

  -Macbeths guilt causes him to have hallucinations

  -Motif of blood
• "I am afraid to think what I have done: look on't again I dare not" - Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2


  -Cant face reality - fear, guilt

  -Macbeth ay be terrified of what hes done knowing he has desroyed something that was once in order
• "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from hand?" - Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2


  -Macbeth expresses his guilt and realises he can't erase the consequences of his actions

  -Motif of blood
• "Macbeth doth murder sleep" - Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2


  Macbeths exclamation and the personification of sleep suggests both his guilt and realisation that murdering the king has robbed him of peace and perhaps eternal rest
• "Life...is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" - Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 4


  -Pessimistic view

  -Realisation that all his ambitions actions were ultimately meaningless and will lead to his defeat
• "Too full o' the milk of human kindness" - Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5


  -About Macbeth

  -Milk - breastmilk - feminine

  -Lady Macbeth fears Macbeth will not be manly enough

  -He is too pure - wholesome
• "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it" - Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5


  Lady Macbeth instructs Macbeth to practice deception, using the biblical metaphor of a serpent, a symbol of treachery
• "My keen knife see not the wand it makes" - Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5


  Implies she is eager and willing to commit her murderous crimes yet, by invoking darkness, she wants to hide this unfeminine, criminal side of herself
• "Come you spirits... unsex me here" - Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5


  Commands spirits to strip her of feminine traits, subverting gender roles through unnatural means
• "Screw your courage to the sticking-place and we'll not fail" - Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7


  -To Macbeth

  -Macbeth needs courage (which he lacks) for his upcoming deed
• "When you durst do it, then you were a man" - Lady Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7


  Lady Macbeth is attacking Macbeths masculinity to manipulate him into committing murder, displaying her power through deception
• "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it" - Lady Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2


  -Excusing herself for not doing the deed

  -Lady Macbeth isnt completely coldblooded

  -Foreshadows her future feelings of guilt
• "Out damned spot: out, I say!" - Lady Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1


  -Repetition of 'out'

  -Lady Macbeths desperate pleading and hallucinations symbolise her loss of power and mental instability due to her guilt
• "In thunder, lighting, or in rain?" - The Witches, Act 1, Scene 1


  -Sets a gloomy, downcast start of the play
• "Fair is foul and foul is fair" - The Witches, Act 1, Scene 1


  Paradoxical language warns of deception and upheaval, foreshadowing the corruption of natural order - The Great Chain of Being
• "All hail, Macbeth, thou, shalt, be King hereafter!" - The Witches, Act 1, Scene 3


  -The witches prophesy that Macbeth will be King, sparking his ambition

  -The witches are the catalysts to Macbeths hamartia and ambition
• "O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!" - Duncan, Act 1, Scene 2


  -About Macbeth

  -Duncan praise Macbeth for his courage in battle and calls him his relative

  -Ironic as Macbeth betrays Duncan and murders him
• "Theres daggers in mens smiles" - Donalbain, Act 2, Scene 3


  -About Macbeth

  -Donalbain doesnt trust Macbeth after the Kings (Donalbains father) death