Macbeth

• "Look like th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under 't." - Act 3 Scene 2

  • deceiving everyone
  • 'be' imperative verb
  • 'serpent' biblical imagery adam and eve who lived in paradise and total innocence until the serpent (devil) enticed them to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge
  • lady macbeth is 2 faced -> tells Macbeth to be evil
  • Dominance/innocent appearances
• "Fair is foul and foul is fair" - Act 1 Scene 1 witches

  • brave Macbeth
  • inversion
  • tyrannical Macbeth
  • summarises the play
  • supernatural configures what the audience knows to be true
  • sets the tone for the rest of the play
  • written to linger in audience's mind -> don't trust apperances
• "This dead butcher and his fiend-like queen"- Act 5 Scene 11 malcom

  • 'butcher' - imply's ruthless killer, sums up what people think of him as a tyrant
  • 'fiend-like' - dehumanising
  • no sadness or remorse
  • last description of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth reveals general hatred to them
  • comparison to first portrayal
  • reminds us of Macbeth's tragic decline
  • fallen from grace in the eyes of his country
• "O full of scorpions is my mind"- Act 3 Scene 2 macbeth

  • "full" covered
  • "scorpions" foreshadowing, eating away at his mind/sanity
  • foreshadows that loss of sanity will be his eventual downfall
  • his actions/thirst for ambition leads to his death
• "will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands"- Act 2 Scene 2 Macbeth

  • "Neptune's" not even the most powerful being (a god) can stop him from feeling this way
  • "blood" metaphor for his guilt, carries it everywhere he goes
  • Macbeth feels horrible/guilty the first time but gets used to it as he kills more e.g banquo/macduff's family
  • links to act 5 scene 1 -> lady macbeth becomes guilty but she ridiculed Macbeth for it (irony)
• "sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep"- Act 2 Scene 2 macbeth

  • "sleep"- symbol of innocence, personified, Macbeth has destroyed the innocence of himself and his wife
  • supernatural elemnt reflects his fragile mental state
  • knows he has condemned his soul by committing regicide
  • audience feels sympathy for Macbeth's immediate guilt
  • afraid of the consequences of his actions
  • Lack of sleep represents guilt
• "Tis unnatural, even like the deed that's done"- Act 2 Scene 4 old man

  • nature reacts to Duncans death -> reacts violently to the disruption of the divine right of kings
  • events are not a common occurance
  • nature vs Macbeth
• "when thou durst do it then you were a man" - Act 1 Scene 7 Lady Macbeth

  • "man" he is a coward
  • hits him where it hurts
  • dangers of patriarchy for men too -> questioning his masculinity/courageousness
  • important for men to be seen as masculine especially in the eyes of his wife
• "is this a dagger which i see before me"- Act 2 scene 1 Macbeth

  • supernatural sight guiding to his destiny or a hallucination created by his anxious mind -> unclear
  • vision leads him to serve his selfish ambitions
  • reveals he is conflicted until just before the murder
  • uses fate/the vision as an excuse - would not be able to reconcile his conscious with the act otherwise
  • foreshadows the other ghosts and hallucinations which will haunt him and his wife later
• "Brave Macbeth- well he deserves that name"

  • 'Brave' courageous, valiant- bravery allows him to be bold (killing Duncan)
  • 'deserves' callous in who he killed, he earned it- fought as a valiant soldier
  • 'name' claims the adjective should be used as his name
  • Imapcts of the patriarchy: man's character was judged on his bravery
  • Macbeth is held in high regard by the king and people he is surrounded by
  • as the play develops shows how the royals (king) was a poor judge of character -> first Thane of Cawdor and now Macbeth
• "let not light see me dark and deep desires"- Act 1 Scene 4 Macbeth

  • 'l' and 'd' literary devices, alliteration
  • 'light' metaphor for the people around him, juxtaposition (Malcom's light), hiding his thoughts from God- unwilling to openly challenge God by killing the divinely appointed king
  • 'dark' thinking of the king, murder/treason
  • 'deep' part of him
• "let not light see me dark and deep desires"- Act 1 Scene 4 Macbeth

  • expressing his dark thoughts in private
  • conflicted desires
  • shows that Macbeth was already thinking of regicide before being 'influenced' by Lady Macbeth
  • Afraid to even fantasise about regicide -> ambition will overpower reason
  • 'light' juxtaposing 'dark' conflict between morality and ambition - emphasises Macbeth's tumultuous mental state
• "Yet I do fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness"- Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth

  • 'milk of human kindness' digs at his masculinity -> associates good qualities with breastfeeding
  • Macbeth is not a murderer by nature and Lady Macbeth see's kindness as a weakness
  • Just as guilty as Macbeth
  • Would be unusual for a Woman to have had these views: Sets audience up to view her as a villain and manipulator -> Lady Macbeth knows she will have to convince Macbeth to go through with the Murder
• "The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles to betray's in deepest consequence"- Act 1 Scene 3 Banquo

  • 'instruments of darkness' foreshadows the play and evil
  • 'honest' juxtaposition, truth
  • Witches are going to play/trick Macbeth and Banquo
  • the truth will be evil (juxtaposition)
  • tell truth to win loyalty -> betray them and they will suffer the consequence of trusting them
  • told Macbeth 'no man born of woman' knew Macduff was a c-section, his downfall
• "out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow"- Act 5 Scene 2 Macbeth

  • 'brief' life's fleeting nature, considers his morality
  • 'candle' metaphor for life
  • 'shadow' represents greed - Macbeth will always chase his desires (power, ambition, kingship) as he will never be satisfied, you can never catch a shadow
  • brief/ pointless nature of life
  • consequence of going against God
  • questioning if it was worth it
• "Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" - Act 5 Scene 1 Lady Macbeth

  • 'blood' representation of guilt
  • dramatic mental decline
  • hallucination of blood, contradicts 'a little water clears us of this deed'
  • will never be rid of the guilt -> catalyst to suicide
• "out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow"- Act 5 Scene 2 Macbeth

  • negative perspective on life is a result of his immoral actions
  • Macbeth wanted to be king (always in pursuit of more)- killed banquo, wanted his lineage to be kings
  • Macduff blows out Macbeth's candle -> he is Macbeth's dramatic foil (what will lead to his downfall)
  • Breakdown of his relationship with Lady Macbeth
  • He is worn down/tired by his paranoia and guilt
• '"Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty"'- Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth

  • 'fill me' Willing/begging to be completely transformed
  • 'direst' worst evil
  • alliteration, impression of a ritual
  • For women to be seen as powerful they would have to sacrifice everything
  • Unnatural behaviour for the time period -> has to call on the supernatural as she is not cruel by nature
• '"Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty"'- Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth (2)

  • foreshadows inability to cope with the consequences of this unnatural role
  • doesn't trust her husband to kill Duncan - has to play masculine role to see it through
  • Patriarchy- wants to replace her feminine qualities with masculine ones, women were presented as being 'weak' traditional female qualities (soft etc)
• "When thou durst do it then you were a man"- Act 1 Scene 7 Lady Macbeth

  • 'man' he is a coward
  • hits him where it hurts
  • dangers of patriarchy for me too -> questioning his masculinity/courageousness
  • important for men to be seen as masculine especially in the eye's of their wife
• "had he not resembled my Father as he slept, i had done't"- Act 2 Scene 2 Lady Macbeth

  • reveals a vulnerable side to her character
  • may be an excuse to hide her inability to kill/violence
  • trys to force her nature to an 'unnatural masculinity' -> punished for challenging gender norms
  • shakespearean times -> although women were capable of manipulation they were incapable of violence
• witches and the supernatural

  • Believed to be women who had made a pact with the devil, those accused of Witchcraft were burnt at the stake
  • James considered himself an 'expert' on the supernatural -> wrote an 80 paged book called 'Delemononlogie'
  • James decided to end the standing commission that had been established to hunt out witches, persecution did not end
  • Between 1603 and 1625 there was roughly 20 witchcraft trials a year in Scotland (nearly 450 total)
  • half the accused were found guilty and executed
• the great chain of being

  • belief that everything in the universe had a specific place and rank in order of their perceived importance
  • within the family-> fathers, higher than mothers; husbands, higher than wives; sons, higher than daughters
  • god -> angels -> kings -> men -> women -> animals
• Shakespear sentence starter


  intro: in shakespeare's eponymous tragedy 'Macbeth'...

  Para 1: In the exposition of the play...

  Para 2: However, in the subsequent scenes...

  Para 3: As the play progresses...

  Conclusion: in conclusion..
• Shakespeare words to add

  emotive superlative->(of highest degree)...

  the lexical->(words or vocab) choice...

  emasculate -> (deprive of male role) him...

  downward spiral...

  sincere equality...

  may connote...

  exude masculinity...

  unapologetic display of power...

  heinous act...

  audience's pre-determined fears of feminine power,
• King James I

  • Macbeth was written between 1603 and 1606
  • James I became King in 1603
  • Play appeals to king's interests -> his obsession with the supernatural, compliments him by making his ancestor Banquo a hero in the play
  • Questions about the role of the monarchy/subject duties were explored and would have been pertinent to Shakespeare's contemporary audience -> due to the gunpowder plot
  • Real Macbeth reigned in Scotland from 1040 to 1057
  • Killed his predecessor Duncan I and was killed by Malcom III (Duncan's son)
• Divine right of kings

  • the idea that the king was directly appointed by God to rule
  • disobedience to the king was disobedience to God
  • to kill the king was seen as a heinous, blasphemous act that defied not only God but also nature
  • prominent belief
• Succession and order

  • great importance in the 16th/17th century
  • Elizabeth preceded James I, was the Virgin Queen -> had no natural successor
  • created instability and fear in England -> people were unsure of who would be next