Macbeth

• Big Ideas


  - Shakespeare uses the play and Macbeth's illegitimate rule to demonstrate the terrible consequences of disrupting the natural order.

  - Shakespeare uses the play to demonstrate the consequences of engaging with the supernatural.

  - Shakespeare uses Macbeth's role as a tragic hero to highlight how vulnerable people are to the destructive temptation of power.
• Context


  - Written in 1606 (The Jacobean Era) by William Shakespeare

  - King was James the VI of Scotland, King James the I of England (He was a protestant)

  - James the VI was a distant cousin of Queen Elizabeth and was insecure about his right to the throne.

  - The Divine Right Of Kings was that kings were chosen by God and that God set out an order for everything. This was known as the Great Chain of Being. So if you committed regicide it was seen as an act against God.

  - They also had a strong belief in witchcraft and blamed a lot of events they couldn't explain on witchcraft.
• Macbeth Quotes


  'False face must hide what the false heart doth know' (A1,S7)

  
  

  'Is this a dagger which I see before me?' (A2,S1)

  
  

  'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?' (A2,S2)

  
  

  'Full of scorpions is my mind ' (A3,S2)
• Lady Macbeth Quotes


  'I do fear thy nature: it is too full o' the milk of human kindness' (A1,S5)

  
  

  'Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here' (A1,S5)

  
  

  'Look like th' innocent flower/ But be the serpent under' (A1,S5)

  
  

  'Will these hands never be clean?' (A5,S1)
• Banquo Quotes


  'Why do you seem to fear things that sound so fair?' (A1,S3)

  
  

  'If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow, and which will not, speak' (A1,S3)

  
  

  'The root and father of many Kings' (A3,S1) (Banquo's Soliloquy)

  
  

  'He has a royalty of nature' (A3,S1) (Macbeth about Banquo)
• Macduff Quotes


  'O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart/ cannot conceive or name thee!' (A2,S3) (response to death of King Duncan)

  
  

  'Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The lords appointed temple, and stole thence the life o' the building!' (A2,S3)

  
  

  'All my pretty little ones? ... all my pretty little chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop' (A4,S3)

  
  

  'Despair thy charm / Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped' (A5,S8)
• The Witches/Supernatural Quotes

  'Fair is foul and foul is fair; hover through the fog and filthy air.' (A1,S1)

  
  

  'Thou canst not say I did it: never shake thy glory locks at me' (A3,S4) (Macbeth to Banquo's ghost)

  
  

  'Something wicked this way comes' (A4,S1)

  
  

  'Be bloody, bold and resolute... none of woman born shall harm Macbeth' (A4,S1)
• Ambition Theme


  'I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself, and falls on the other' (Macbeth)

  
  

  'Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised' (Lady Macbeth)

  
  

  'Our fears in Banquo stick deep' (Macbeth)
• Fate Theme


  'If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir' (Macbeth)

  
  

  'Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires' (Macbeth)

  
  

  'Yet do I fear thy nature; its too full of the milk of human kindness' (Lady Macbeth)
• Deception Theme


  'Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it' (Lady Macbeth)

  
  

  'Stars hide your fires; let not light see my dark and deep desires' (Macbeth)

  
  

  'Help me hence, ho' (Lady Macbeth)

  
  

  'yet I do repent me of my fury that I did kill them' (Macbeth)
• Guilt Theme


  'Why do you start and seem to fear/Things that sound so fair' (Banquo)

  
  

  'Is this a dagger I see before me?' (Macbeth)

  
  

  'Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me' (Macbeth to Banquo's ghost)

  
  

  'A little water clears us of this deed' (Lady Macbeth)
• Masculinity Theme

  'Brave Macbeth'

  
  

  'Brandished Steel'

  
  

  'If you durst do it then you are a man'

  
  

  'Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown and put a barren sceptre in my gripe
• Women Theme


  'You look like women and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so'' (Banquo)

  
  

  'Come you spirits that tend to mortal thoughts, unsex me here' (Lady Macbeth)

  
  

  'Too full of the milk of human kindness' (Lady Macbeth)

  
  

  'Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped