macduff

• Most Sacrilegious murder (Act 2, Sc 3)

  • Ambition - divine right of Kings
  • Contrast to Macbeth who is ambitious
  • Macduff obeys Divine Right of Kings
• "O nation miserable, with an untitled tyrant (Act 4, Sc 3)

  • Kingship contrasts how a country is powerful when the right leader is charge. When a leader is not chosen by God it leads to the ruin of the country.
  • Metaphor
  • Great Chain of being disgusted by Macbeth's ambition trying to move up in the Great Chain Of Being
• "All my pretty chickens .... in one fell swoop" (Act 4, Sc 3)

  • Chickens - means they are unable to defend themselves.
  • Ambition and supernatural - witches make people evil
  • "Beware of Macduff"
• "From his mother's womb, untimely ripped" (Act 5, Sc 8)

  • supernatural
  • Restores the natural order
  • distrust of witches
  • reflects Jacobeans distrust of Witches
• "The usurper's cursed head ... Hail, King of Scotland! (Act 5, Sc 8)

  • ambition can be corrupting Macduff has no ambition
  • Divine right of kings respected by Macduff
• "Oh Scotland, Scotland"

  • Hyperbole and repetition: emphasises his distress at the fall of Scotland under Macbeth's tyranny he laments the loss of order and morality within Scotland
  • Personification: he personifies Scotland, speaking to it as if it were a person. The death of Scotland under Macbeth is alike to him mourning a person - he values kingship with the highest regard
• "Fit to govern no not to live"