Macbeth

• ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’


  Sisters in 1:1

  appearance vs reality, everything isnt as it seems, links into the appearance of Dunsinane castle, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth
• ‘so fair and foul a day I have not seen’


  1:3 Macbeth

  direct to link to the Sisters, day is good yet bad simultaneously as they have won the battle but lost many lives- blurred line between good and evil
• ‘stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires’ 


  1:4 Macbeth

  light vs dark, ambition, willing to hide in darkness so that others and God cannot see his evil. God- stars and the light, juxtaposed deep and dark- signifies going against Divine Right of Kings
• ‘yet i do fear thy nature, it is too full of the milk of human kindness’


  1:5, Lady Macbeth

  Macbeth‘s masculinity- has ambition yet is a coward to take charge, good qualities- breast feeding
• ‘unsex me here’


  1:5 Lady Macbeth

  Calling on dark spirits to strip her of her femininity, gender roles, not entirely cruel by nature
• ‘is this a dagger I see before me?’


  2:1 Macbeth

  appearance vs reality, reveals hesitation and beginning of his psychological downfall
• ‘Had he not resembled my father as he slept, i had done it’


  2:2 Lady Macbeth

  guilt, she cannot bring herself to kill Duncan and conveys depth to her character, agency- cannot do it herself. Shakespearean view that women are weaker?
• ‘Sleep no more, Macbeth doth murder sleep’


  2:2

  guilt, only the righteous may sleep, succeeded in his ambition but at what cost, immediate consequence. Macbeth has destroyed his innocence for murder
• ‘noughts had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content’


  3:2 Lady Macbeth

  Guilt, nothing has come from it- they are not happy- contrasts Lady Macbeth at start of play
• ‘Out damned spot, out I say. Here‘s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’


  5:1 Lady Macbeth

  psychological decline, representation of guilt which directly contradicts herself in 1:5 ‘A little water clears us of this deed’
• ‘Out, out, brief candle’ 


  5:5 Macbeth

  worn down by guilt, ‘candle’- Lady Macbeth, Light Vs Dark- swallowed by darkness