My quotes

• Lady Macbeth

  • Transgresser
  • Emasculates Macbeth
  • Femme fatale
• Lady Macbeth: '"Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me toe-top full with direst cruelty"'
• Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts...

  • Imperative "Come"
  • Desperation to become unsexed, androgynous image as gender roles were rigid
  • Familiarity with spirits
  • Prefix "Un" - wishes to be denounced of her femininity gifted by god, defiance; virago
  • Blasphemous
  • Perhaps indication of her inability to achieve her overgrowing ambition she must rely on supernatural powers, living in a patriarchy, King James was misogynistic
  • Syntax - spirits before "unsex" - they are necessary
  • Fear in audiences, beliefs of devil
  • Irony - despite her attempts she must always rely on her husband
• Direst

  Superlative, desperation, almost as though she is willing to sell her soul
• Lady Macbeth: '"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't"'
• Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't"'

  • "Flower" - femininity, alluring, femme fatale
  • "Serpent" - cunning, painful secrecy
  • Juxtaposition - schemes to manoeuvre acquiring power over Macbeth
  • Warning to audiences
  • Serpent - biblical allusions, fall of mankind, deception
  • Lady Macbeth = Eve
  • "Innocent" - sweet, vulnerable
  • Machiavellian approach to power
• Lady Macbeth: '"Make thick my blood, stop up the access passage to remorse"'
• "Make thick my blood, stop up the access passage to remorse"'

  • Inhumane qualities - supernatural?
  • Asking for the impossible - desperation
  • Remorse = emotion synonymous with weakness
  • Femininity constraints her
• Lady Macbeth: '"pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell"'
• pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell"'

  • Theme: violence
  • Hell on earth, chaos, disorder
  • "Smoke" - foggy, unclear future, secrecy
• Lady Macbeth: '"Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers"'
• Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers

  • Theme: ambition
  • Theme: supernatural
  • "Come" - imperative
  • Femininity hinders her pathway to power
  • "Milk" - purity, fluid - gender fluidity
  • "Blood" "milk - soul and minds affected - four humours of medieval medicine
  • "Blood" and "gall" - crucifixion, Romans offered wine laced with gall, she is on the sides of Romans, the enemy
  • "Gall" - bitter imagery, impudent behaviour - reflection of what she hopes to achieve after power obtained, perhaps bitterness of her own inability to have children
• Lady Macbeth: '"Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out"'
• "Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out"'

  • Theme: violence
  • "Plucked" "dash'd" - plosives violent imagery, merciless and determined
  • Graphic imagery
  • Infanticide as a symbol, and its innocence - willingness to do what's necessary
  • Foreshadows moral consequence of psychological torment
  • Violates maternal instinct
  • Ironic - the organ she wishes to disrupt of her unborn child becomes her locus
• Lady Macbeth: '"i shame to wear a heart so white"'
• '"i shame to wear a heart so white"'

  • Theme: gender
  • "White" - purity, innocence, emasculation
  • "Shame" - disgust of her husband, power imbalance, ashamed of his cowardice
  • Foreshadows her own demise
  • Perhaps indicates her own self-loathing of emotions
• Lady Macbeth: '"A little water clears us of this deed"'
• "A little water clears us of this deed"'

  • Theme: gender
  • Litotes - downsplays Macbeth's guilt and act of regicide, blinded conscience, irony to Act 5
  • Euphemisms of "deed" - facade, inability to accept seriousness of deed
  • Water - pure, brings life
• Lady Macbeth: '"that my keen knife see not the wound it makes , nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark"'
• "that my keen knife see not the wound it makes , nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark"'

  • Theme: appearance vs reality
  • Theme: ambition
  • Keen knife - plosive alliteration, brutality of act, remorseless nature of Lady Macbeth from her indifference
  • Motif of dark - consumed by evil, does not want God to condemn her
  • Parallel to Macbeth
  • Guilt - wants to hide from God, ashamed?
  • Perhaps God is her enemy here - he will disrupt her chances to sustain power
• Lady Macbeth: '"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!"'
• Lady Macbeth's quote

  • metaphoric hyperbole- attempts to mask up guilt, smell of blood intoxicating her state of mind, constant reminder of her actions, not even strongest perfumes can erase moral sin, no pleasant relief
  • ALT- her vulnerability stops her from reaching salvation, unwilling to put effort in
  • symbol of hand- physical and moral implications of her involvement, an instrument of crime, source of guilt, juxtaposition of small hand yet grand guilt highlights consequences of actions
  • foreshadows- suicide, message of unchecked ambition
  • existential reflection of readers
• Lady Macbeth: '"Out damned spot! Out I say!"'
• Lady Macbeth enters with a taper
• Act 5; [enters with a taper]

  Theme: guilt

  light symbolism- emblematic of how she seeks hope and solace

  divine guidance- subconscious plea for God's salvation and allow her to be redeemed from the torment

  light is her antithesis to previous presentation

  motifs of darkness and light- her depraved and dark wants for violence lead to desperation to see light and redeem
• Macbeth: '"I have no spur, To prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on th'other"'
• "I have no spur, To prick the sides of my intent..

  • "Spur" - needs support to reach his goal - supernatural intervention
  • "Vaulting" - imbalance, aware of the dangers to achieve his ambition and how it can cause his downfall should there be any issues
  • Personification of ambition - alike to human force that can corrupt his formerly innocent mind
  • "Fall" - all encompassing ambition is his hamartia
  • Metaphor of vaulting ambition - parallels between him and jockey, one who can manage an untameable, almost animalistic force, self-deceptive, believes he can control this force
• Macbeth: '"I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep"'
• Macbeth: '"Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires"'
• "Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires"'


  • Theme: appearance vs reality
  • Theme: ambition
  • Motif of light and dark = good vs evil, his moral conflict
  • Star - biblical image of Jesus, does not want God to see his heart waver to the unnerving power that awaits, guilt, wants to make his own destiny
  • Light - refusing solace from God, disregarding his warnings
  • Deep desires - plosives, foreshadows pain to be caused
  • Fire - creates irreversible damage, symbolises his duplicitous facade will create damage
• Macbeth says "I think not of them"
• "I think not of them"


  • Theme: appearance vs reality
• Macbeth: '"Disdaining fortune… smok'd with bloody execution"'
• "Disdaining fortune… smok'd with bloody execution"'

  • Theme: violence
  • Smok'd - could connote hell and fire, foreshadow chaos to come
  • Disdaining fortune - disregard for fate, attempt to manipulate natural order
• Macbeth: '"his wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls"'
• his wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls"'

  • Theme: violence
  • Mental chaos has led to abandoning of morals
  • Acting like God
  • Excessive bloodthirst
  • And unstoppable trajectory of murder
• Macbeth: '"with tarquins ravishing strides towards his design"'
• with tarquins ravishing strides towards his design"

  • Theme: ambition
  • Theme: gender
  • Wants to emulate Tarquin - Roman tyrant who raped his wife
  • Will become a barbaric tyrant, remorseless
  • Obstructing his moral compass, power synonymous with brutality
  • Ambition fueled by emasculation
  • "Design" - critical crafting of desired position as king
  • Despite transgressing natural order, seductive allure of power and authority obstructs him from seeing consequences
  • Believes external validation of kinship will compensate for internal strength taken by Lady Macbeth, wants to prove masculinity to wife
• Macbeth: '"So fair and foul a day i have not seen"'
• So fair and foul a day i have not seen

  • Theme: supernatural