Macbeth

• Witches: '"Fair is foul and foul is fair"
• Meaning of the quote

  Good ("fair") things have become evil ("foul") and evil things are seen as good
• “fair is foul and foul is fair 


  • Paradoxical statement -emphasises how the witches delight in evil and the suffering of others. proves the lengths they will go to cause harm .Establishes the witches as a genuine threat from early on
  • Juxtaposition -Deliberately ambiguous, beginning the equivocation that the witches will use to mislead and manipulate Macbeth
  • Foreshadows the disruption to the natural order of kingship later in the play when Macbeth murders Duncan
• Captain: '"As sparrows, eagles, or the hare, the lion"'
• Meaning of the quote

  The captain is describing how brave Macbeth and Banquo have been in battle by comparing their enemies to weak animals (sparrows and hares) and Macbeth and Banquo to strong animals (eagles and lions)
• The quote

  • Juxtaposition emphasises the strength and bravery of Macbeth and Banquo
  • Animal imagery - eagles and lions have connotations of honour and royalty
• Macbeth: '"Stay, you Imperfect speakers, tell me more"'
• Meaning of the quote

  Macbeth begs the witches to stay and tell him more about their prophecies, suggesting he is interested in what they have to say about him potentially becoming king
• The quote

  • Imperatives "stay and tell" portray Macbeth's desperation
  • Macbeth acknowledges the witches are immoral beings yet still wants to talk to them, implying he is willing to sacrifice his morality for power
• Meaning of the quote

  Banquo says that evil figures like the witches (the "instruments of darkness") often tell the truth or part of the truth in order to earn their victims' trust, before leading them to destruction
• "the instruments of darkness tell us truths"

  • "Instruments of darkness" - metaphor linking the witches to Satan and hell
  • "Tell us truths" - Banquo is more doubtful towards the witches than Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth: '"Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts"'
• Meaning of the quote

  Lady Macbeth calls on supernatural powers to make her and Macbeth physically and emotionally more cruel and unsympathetic in order to fulfil their murderous plans
• The quote

  • "Come you spirits" - emphasises the depth of Lady Macbeth's evil as she actively seeks to engage with the supernatural
  • Lady Macbeth is demanding the evil spirits to help her become more masculine, actively rejecting her femininity
• Lady Macbeth: '"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't"'
• Meaning of the quote

  Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to hide his true feelings and appear kind and innocent on the outside, while being cold and cruel underneath like a snake
• The quote

  • "Innocent flower" - simile, emphasises Lady Macbeth's use of outward appearance to manipulate others

  "Serpent under't" - metaphor, emphasises the depth of Lady Macbeth's evil and the danger she poses
• Macbeth: '"Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself"'
• Meaning of the quote

  Macbeth recognises that his only motivation for killing Duncan is his uncontrolled ambition, which he knows is dangerous
• The quote

  • "Vaulting ambition" - zoomorphism, describes Macbeth's desire for power as though it had a life of its own

  "O'erleaps" - verb has connotations of going beyond right or reasonable limits, representative of Macbeth's contravention of the established hierarchy
• Macbeth is trying to rationalise

  Recognise that the only thing motivating him is his ambition
• Macbeth: 'vaulting ambition'
• Zoomorphism


  • Describes Macbeth's desire for power as though it were a horse, leaping over all obstacles. This may suggest his desire for power has a life of its own
• Macbeth references his own hamartia-his uncontrolled ambition, and recognises the danger that it poses him. The fact he still murders Duncan despite this, underlines the idea his thirst for power overrides all other considerations
• The genre of tragedy is dependent on a tragic hero who falls from grace as a result of their own hamartia, or fatal flaw. This soliloquy establishes that Macbeth's hamartia is ambition, and foreshadows the fact that it will cause his downfall
• Blood

  • Symbolises the guilt that Macbeth feels for murdering Duncan
• "all great Neptune's ocean"

  • Hyperbole. -emphasises the gravity of his crime. Macbeth recognises that he has committed an unforgivable sin
• The Divine Right of Kings- It was a common belief in the Jacobean era that the King was chosen by God, and was his representative on earth. This belief is reflected in the idea that Macbeth's sin can never be forgiven, and by the fact that he is eventually punished for it with madness and death
• "O, full of scorpions is my mind , dear wife!"

  • Metaphor has connotations of poison, this suggests that Macbeth has been corrupted by his ambition and the desire to hold onto his power
• "O" and "!"

  • The use of exclamations demonstrates the depth of Macbeth's fear and suffering. This implies that becoming king has not brought him the happiness he thought it would and could foreshadow his later madness
• During the Jacobean era, regicide was seen as one of the worst crimes one could commit and a contemporary audience would expect Macbeth to be punished for killing the king, it is therefore fitting that the beginning of Macbeth's punishment happens in his own mind, before he is eventually brought to justice at the end of the play
• "edge of the sword"


  • This violent image reflects how cruel Macbeth has become and how he now rules through fear
• "This wife, his babes and all unfortunate souls"


  • The use of a triplet shows that Macbeth's violence has become uncontrollable as he is willing to kill the innocent to get what he wants
• Masculinity is traditionally associated with strength and violence. However, through Macbeth's callous violence, Shakespeare is perhaps suggesting that strength combined with emotion, as seen in the character of Macduff, is a better form of masculinity than violence. This is perhaps in support of James I, who was known as a peaceful and empathetic king
• "out"

  • The repetition shows her desperation to redeem herself and get rid of the metaphorical blood on her hands. Her use of imperatives has become frantic, rather than the controlled imperatives she uses in Act One
• "damned"


  • Lady Macbeth acknowledges the evil that she chose to spread by manipulating Macbeth into killing the King. She acknowledges that her actions will lead her to hell
• Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth becomes more remorseful for her actions, therefore conforming more to the Jacobean stereotype of a caring and sensitive woman. Her new fragility is reflected in how horrified she is by the image of blood on her hands
• Epithet

  • Macbeth has been stripped of his name and will now only be remembered as a "dead butcher", implying that he has become defined purely by his tyranny and callous violence
• Metaphor


  • butcher-Macbeth has gradually lost his humanity throughout the play, murdering innocent people
• Malcolm's epithet "dead butcher" shows how Macbeth loses his place in the hierarchy altogether, ending up with a reputation no more noble than a 'butcher'. This emphasises his downfall from the most powerful position of king, to nothing