macbeth

• “i have no spurs to prick the sides of my intent only vaulting ambition which o-erleaps itself and falls on the other”

  • macbeth compares himself to a horse rider who may over estimate their ability to leap over an obstical and fall down
  • he is having doubts about the validity of his ambition to kill the king
  • macbeth want to be king
• “o full of scorpions is my mind dear wife“

  • can’t think straight
  • is otherthinking
  • animal imagery is used to highlight his guilty conscience and his fears about vanquish sons stealing his crowning and are stinging him
• “till he unseam’d him from the have to the chaps, and fixed his head upon our battlements”

  • macbeth is originally described by three captain as a “brave soldier”
  • he is able to commit great violence in order to acheive his desires
  • here it is applauded
  • this would lead to his downfall
• “ i will not be afraid of death and bane, till birnam forest come to dunsinane”

  • the way macbeth speaks in rhyme mirrors the language of the witches which reveals how strongly they have influenced him to believe in the supernatural
• “stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deepest desires”

  • macbeth is feeing guilty about his thoughts of killing duncan in pursuit of power
  • he is admitting his ambition and is aware that this thought is wrong
• there was a societal belief at the time (Jacobean era) that king was chosen by god

  • it was believed that the thought of commuting regicide alone was a great sun
• plural nouns of “stars“ and “fires” create a semantic field of light which connotes biblical imagery
• macbeth wants to hide his desires from god as he knows it is wrong