Macbeth - Key Quotes and Analysis

• Mr. Everything English: 'Give me a quote from Inspector Calls, give me a quote from Macbeth'
• Exams are about four or five months away
• If you're a student and you're seeing your exams in May/June time and you don't know your quotes, what are you waiting for?
• If you don't know your quotes, you can't analyze any effects which means you can't answer any GCSE questions
• I'm going to make a few videos where I'm going to give you the quotes that you need to learn off by heart
• You only need to learn 10 quotes
• Learning 30-40 quotes per text is not feasible
• I'm going to give you 10 quotes from Macbeth
• Learn these 10 quotes and forget about everything else
• In the exam, they will give you an extract which will have quotes in it already
• If you've learned the 10 quotes I'm going to give you, that is enough for you to produce four paragraphs - two on the extract and two on the whole text
• These 10 quotes are from different characters and can be applied to a range of characters and themes
• Don't look at quotes as one-dimensional, look at them as having different purposes
• Brave Macbeth


  When he deserves that name
• Let not light see my dark and deep desires


  Macbeth already has dark desires before meeting Lady Macbeth, showing the power of the supernatural
• Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of direst cruelty


  Lady Macbeth wants to reduce her femininity and become more masculine to gain power, showing the oppression of women
• When thou darest to do it, then you were a man


  Lady Macbeth plays on Macbeth's masculinity, showing the danger of patriarchy
• Macbeth kills Duncan to prove his masculinity to his wife rather than out of a desire to be king
• Lady Macbeth calls Macbeth a coward


  Tells him he is not manly enough to be her husband
• Macbeth kills Duncan to prove his masculinity to his wife rather than his desire to be the king
• Macbeth: 'Will all of great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands'
• Macbeth's guilt


  • First time committing a bad deed he feels terrible, but over time it doesn't feel as bad
  • Macbeth used to killing in the army, but not used to killing an old man sleeping in bed
• Macbeth's guilt in Act 2 Scene 2


  Linked to Lady Macbeth trying to wash the blood off her hands in Act 5 Scene 1
• Macbeth: 'Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.'
• Brief candle


  Metaphor for life
• Walking shadow


  Metaphor for power, ambition, titles, kingship, money, respect - things we constantly chase but can never catch
• Macbeth questions whether it was all worth it, as he is about to die
• Lady Macbeth: 'Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it'
• Macbeth: 'Full of scorpions is my mind'
• This quote foreshadows Macbeth's eventual downfall as he loses his mind
• Witches: 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair'
• Fair is foul, and foul is fair


  Morality is twisted up, good is bad and bad is good
• Banquo: 'The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence'
• Instruments of darkness


  The witches will play Macbeth and Banquo
• Telling truths to win trust


  The witches will tell Macbeth and Banquo truths in order to gain their trust, and then betray them