Macbeth

• “Fair is foul and foul is fair” “so foul and fair a day”

  -supernatural, witches

  -good and evil
• “Brave/noble Macbeth“ “bloody execution”

  “his brandished steel”


  -Brave soldier, contrasts with his character at the end
• “Should be women and yet your beards forbid” - Banquo 


  -supernatural

  -gender, few women in play these ones are almost not female = power is masculine
• “You imperfect speakers tell me more”


  -supernatural

  -greed/ambition, Macbeth wants more even if it’s from evil, hubris and arrogance
• ”if chance will have me king why chance may crown me king without my stir“


  -fate vs free will

  -ambition, will do what he can to make sure he is king going against nature
• Duncan speaks in Rhyming Iambic Pentameter


  -royalty, speaks with power as he is appointed by God, Divine right of kings + Great chain of being
• “Is a step on which I must fall down or else o’er leap for in my way it lies” “stars hide your fires let not light see my black and deep desires”


  -ambition, will go against nature for his desires

  -fate vs free will, ‘stars’ are fate which he wants to remove in order to be king
• “I fear thy nature it is too full o’th’milk of human kindness”


  -gender, LM feels Macbeth is too weak/not masculine enough -idea that masculinity = power and femininity = weakness
• “Chastise with the valour of my tongue” “ take my milk for gall”

  ”fill me… top full of direst cruelty”


  -ambition, will manipulate Macbeth till he is king as she thinks he is weak, emasculates Macbeth

  -supernatural, removes her femininity to gain power

  -gender, masculinity is power
• ”his virtues will plead like angels“


  -divine right of kings

  -regicide will break the great chain of being
• “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but only vaulting ambition”


  -ambition, Fuels him to kill Duncan Even when he has no good reason to do so
• “Dashed the brains out had I so sworn as you”


  -gender, emasculates Macbeth for cowardice and has little femininity as she would kill her own child, masculinity = power
• lady Macbeth is machiavellian 


  -meaning she is sly deceitful and ambitious
• “dagger of the mind a false creation”

  “Proceeding from the heat-opressèd brain”


  -guilt, even before the deed it’s began with hallucinations

  -supernatural

  -potentially God giving the choice between good and evil wether or not he takes it ?
• Macbeth and lady Macbeth start play in iambic pentameter but by act 2 scene 1 they fall out of it, speak in Stichomythia for a little


  -this is because they kill Duncan, regicide

  -stichomythia = guilt spirals them out of control/foreshadows them later in the play
• ”Amen stuck in my throat”

  -blasphemous, killed king appointed by God, broke great chain of being
• “All great Neptune’s oceans wash this blood clean from my hand?” “A little water clears us of this deed”


  -contrasting beliefs of Macbeth and lady Macbeth

  -guilt, Macbeth already consumed by guilt whilst LM not so much

  -Neptune is a God, even a God cannot undo what they have done
• “But screw your courage to the sticking place“


  -gender, LM emasculating Macbeth calling him weak
• “There’s daggers in mens smiles”


  -gender, toxic masculinity= brutality

  -donaldbain
• “Upon my head…fruitless crown” “fears in banquo”


  -ambitious for security

  -supernatural, worries for the prophecy of banquo‘s children, fears he is target like Duncan was to him
• “O, full of scorpions is my mind dear wife!” 


  -guilt, starts to feel the consequence of such crimes they have committed (regicide)
• “Never shake thy gory locks at me”


  -guilt, hallucinations of banquo

  -supernatural
• “Are you a man?”


  -gender, LM emasculates Macbeth for his weakness
• “I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more returning we’re as tedious as go o’er”


  -Ambition, so far into it he has no desire to turn back

  -in rhyming iambic pentameter again = back in control has a plan
• “He shall spurn fate“ 


  -supernatural, witches want to create more illusions

  -appearance vs reality and fate vs free will, try to get Macbeth to listen to fate not common sense
• “For none of women born shall harm Macbeth“ “beware Macduff”


  -irony+foreshadows, Macduff is born via c-section = Macbeth‘s downfall
• [procession of eight kings]


  -banquo‘s lineage, eight kings later is James 1 (context) Shakespeare wrote Macbeth as response to attack on James 1
• “Bleed bleed poor country” - Macduff 


  -personification, Scotland injured by Macbeth’s reign
• “My first false speaking was this upon myself”


  -malcom tests Macduff if he thinks he is worthy king
• “But I must also feel it like a man” “let grief convert to anger“


  -gender, Macduff strengthened by his emotions (feminin) unlike toxic masculinity that consumes Macbeth + LM
• “Out damned spot out I say”


  -guilt, blood on her hands remains and catches up to her haunt her for the crime

  -‘damned’ = to hell, referring to the sins they committed and where she will go
• “Life’s but a walking shadow” ”frets it’s hour upon the stage” “signifying nothing”


  -Macbeth realising he will die and all his ambitions were for nothing
• “Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”


  -contrasts to the beginning they are no longer noble and loyal but consumed by ambition and toxic masculinity results in their death
• “O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman”


  -kingship, Duncan about Macbeth