Quotes

• "Fair is foul and foul is fair"


  Witches at beginning of play

  Appearance vs reality

  Sense of disequilibrium
• "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none"


  Banquo's prophecy
• "The instruments of darkness tell us truths"


  Theme of evilness

  Trusting the witches will lead to consequences

  Foreshadows what's going to happen later on in the play
• "For brave Macbeth, he deserves that name"


  Indirect characterisation

  Contrast to how he is later in the play
• "look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it"


  Putting on a facade

  Juxtaposition

  Links to sin from creation story (Genesis)
• "When you durst do it, then you were a man"


  Lady Macbeth emasculating Macbeth
• "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here"


  Taking away femininity so she can kill Duncan

  Atypical of a woman in the Jacobean era

  Becoming more like the witches (talking to spirits)
• "Let not light see my black and deep desires"


  Committing regicide

  Away from the eyes of others + God and heaven
• "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face"


  Appearance vs reality

  Links to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
• "Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?"


  Macbeth addressed as Thane of Cawdor

  Thane of Cawdor executed for treason

  Foreshadows what is going to happen to Macbeth
• "Dash'd the brains out"


  Lady Macbeth committing infanticide

  Links to the supernatural - becoming more like the witches
• "Will all Neptune's oceans wash this blood clean from my hands?"


  Water is a symbol of purity

  Blood is a symbol of guilt -Macbeth is guilty of committing regicide

  Links to Pontius Pilate (Christian belief) - Washed his hands before Jesus' crucifixion so he isn't guilty
• "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition"


  Macbeth is realising his hamartia (hubris)

  Acknowledging his ambition is going unchecked
• "Full of scorpions is my mind"


  Macbeth's peace and mind are poisoned

  Echoing his wife - "Take my milk for gall"
• "And live a coward in thine own esteem"


  Cowardly

  Manipulation

  Lady Macbeth emasculating Macbeth
• "I could not say amen"


  Committing regicide

  Feeling guilt

  Great Chain of Being has collapsed
• "Is this a dagger which I see before me?"


  Appearance vs reality

  Macbeth is becoming insane - hallucinations
• "Thou canst say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me"


  Macbeth technically didn't kill Banquo - was the murderers

  Speaking to Banquo's ghost - Repetition of Macbeth's insanity (dagger before Duncan's murder)

  Theme of guilt
• "Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown... And put a barren sceptre in my gripe"


  Macbeth doesn't accept responsibility - blames it on the witches

  The crown won't be passed on because Macbeth has no heir - Link to Lady Macbeth ("Dash'd its brains out)

  Sceptre has no meaning - no authority

  Foreshadows that Macbeth's reign will be short
• "Some say the Earth was feverous and did shake"


  Great Chain of Being collapsed - disequilibrium

  Links to Duncan's horses becoming cannibals + owl killing the falcon
• "These deeds must not be thought... it will make us mad"


  Lady Macbeth to Macbeth

  Putting on a Mary facade - Appearance vs reality
• "I have given suck and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me"


  Expected from a Jacobean woman - Mary figure but Lady Macbeth is an Eve figure

  Lady Macbeth knows the love between a mother and her child

  Links to "take my milk for gall" - suggests she would kill her own child (Links to the witches)
• "Like the poor cat in the adage"


  Proverb - short well-known saying

  Lady Macbeth emasculating Macbeth

  Discredits all of Macbeth's achievements

  Contrast to "Brave Macbeth"

  Foreshadowing hands will be wet with Duncan's blood
• "Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses"


  Demonstrates internal conflict - senses are going against him

  Personification - shows that his eyes are in control

  Senses has 2 meanings:

  1.Human senses

  2.Awareness and judgement - ability to make the right choices

  The hallucination has taken over his other senses and ability to make judgement
• "Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep"


  Foreshadowing the collapse of the Great Chain of Being - Monarch displaced

  Links to witches - foreshadows Macbeth becoming the wicked one - "something wicked this way comes"

  Internal conflict - Doesn't want to commit regicide but must to prove masculinity

  Sleep links to innocence and links to death (Greek myth: sleep + death are brothers)
• "A false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain"


  Internal conflict - appearance vs reality

  Dagger isn't real - hallucinating

  Link to supernatural - phantom

  Imagery of hell - internal hell

  Macbeth's brain is being "pushed down" - inevitability that Macbeth will become overwhelmed and go insane
• "The death of each day's life.. great natures second course"


  Macbeth speaking after the murder

  Sleep is a natural process - In the play nature has collapsed (Great Chain of Being collapsed) because Macbeth has committed regicide

  Sleep is the death of the events of one day - move o n in the morning
• "Macbeth does murder sleep the innocent sleep"


  Foreshadows Macbeth's loss of innocence and his downfall

  Macbeth can no longer sleep

  Murdered innocent and benevolent king - "His virtues will plead like angels"

  Refers to himself in the 3rd person suggests:

  • Creating distance between himself and his actions
  • Can't process that he's killed Duncan
  • Guilt has already begun
• "A little water clears us of this deed"


  Water symbolises purity - believe they will be pure again

  Lady Macbeth sounds motherly (Atypical for Lady Macbeth) - putting on a facade of a Mary figure

  They have blood on their hands - theme of guilt

  Links to Pontius Pilate - believe they will be forgiven but they won't because committing regicide is sacrilegious
• "There's husbandry in heaven"


  Banquo on night of Duncan's murder

  Demonstrates Banquo is Macbeth's foil character

  Husbandry -being economical - selective of over what you give

  Macbeth has a gap where he can get away with regicide

  Jacobean England: husbandry was encouraged
• "I am in blood steeped in so far"


  Blood - symbol of guilt

  Past redemption

  Macbeth has a lot of guilt - Killing Banquo and committing regicide

  Macbeth to Lady Macbeth