lady macbeth quotes

• Lady Macbeth: 'Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't'
• Lady Macbeth

  • She has power over
  • She is controlling and manipulative
  • She believes deception and cunning are effective ways of gaining power
• The 'innocent flower'


  Highlights the goodness and vulnerability of honest behaviour, innocence and femininity
• The 'serpent under't'

  Clear biblical reference to the serpent in the Garden of Eden who helped bring original sin into the world
• The audience would make a link to the devil and be disturbed by the religious allusions (Christianity was important to society)
• Lady Macbeth would rather act like a devil than a moral human
• "Fill me 'Fill ma' From the (1.5) 9 crown to the toe top full of divest crualty": 'Conveys how she wants to be overcome by cruelty'
• "I may poux my spirits in thine ear; and chastise with the valour of my tongue" (1.5): 'Shas strengths auture and and astute enough to recognise her husband's weaknesses and ruthless enough to exploit them'
• The intensifer 'too' suggests he's good natured but too much that he won't be able to get the crown</b>
• Milk has conactations of scothing nature and mother like nurturing nature · not king like qualities (women are meant to be gentle and kind not man)
• Milk is white (sign of purity) suggasts LM doesn't want to be?
• The motif of milk' and nuture is extended throughout play where she turns maternal affection into violent imagery
• LM is mocking his masculinity / por emasculating him to prompt him to commit regicide
• LM is attacking Hacheth's male prowess (courage) which shows the dangers of patriarchy
• "Out damned spot." (5.1): 'Shakespeare employs dramatic irony as the audience we can see the 'blood as a metaphor for ber deep pyschological and spiritual regret in her unforgivable sins, not sha can just wash off'
• The blood is a physical and metaphorical stain of her guilt as the motif of blood is continuously used in the play to symbolise the guilt and downfall of characters like Macbeth and LM
• LM realises that what's done cannot be undone and therefore there is no going back
• Jacobean people believed that God picked Kings so massing a with the order goes against divine right of kings means that LM is being punished for her actions and this is a warning to the audience, commiting regicide meant you sinned in the eyes of God and you'll be punished