Lady Macbeth

• "it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way"

  lady macbeth after receiving her husband's letter about the witches' prophecies and expressing her fear that he isn't evil enough to kill duncan
• "that i may pour my spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valour of my tongue"


  lady macbeth wants to persuade macbeth into killing duncan
• "come you spirits / that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here / and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty"


  after hearing that duncan is coming to stay the night in her castle, lady macbeth purges herself of her feminine qualities to have the strength to kill duncan
• "make thick my blood / stop up the access and passage to remorse"


  lady macbeth wants evil spirits to clog up her arteries so she feels no remorse for killing duncan
• "come to my woman's breasts and take my milk for gall"


  lady macbeth wants to get rid of her maternal instincts so she can become more masculine and stereotypically have more power
• "look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't"


  lady macbeth tells macbeth to appear innocent but under the surface ready to strike duncan
• "i have given suck and know how tender tis' to love the babe that milks me / and dash'd the brains out had I so sworn as you"


  lady macbeth is using shock to manipulate macbeth into continuing to kill the king
• "infirm of purpose"


  lady macbeth calls macbeth a coward to emasculate him in an attempt to gain power
• "a little water clears us of this deed"


  lady macbeth believes that water can rid them of their sins - has religious references as the holy water is believed to rid people of their sins / also foreshadows lady macbeth's insanity and her underestimation of guilt
• "what's done is done"


  lady macbeth wants her husband to put the deed behind them as it is impractical to rethink the past
• "are you a man?"


  lady macbeth questions macbeth's masculinity when he claims to see banquo's ghost at the banquet
• "out, damned spot! out, i say" "hell is murky" "yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?"


  in lady macbeths sleepwalking scene her memories of the night fall out of her - it shows irony that she cannot get rid of the metaphorical blood stain (guilt) on her hands
• "thane of fife had a wife; where is she now?" "will these hands ne'er be clean?"


  lady macbeth shows remorse for the killing of lady macduff and her hands remain stained like her mind
• "all the perfumes of arabia will not sweeten this little hand"


  lady macbeth believes she can never be washed from this diabolical sin
• "come thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell"

  dark hellish imagery - the night will hide her guilt and the people she killed - relates to macbeths quote "stars hide your fires..."