Character Quotes and Key Definitions // Macbeth Flashcards
Give 3 quotes which demonstrate Macbeth as careless.
- “O, yet I do repent me of my fury, / That I did kill them.”
- “This have I thought good to deliver thee” (just mailing treason????)
- “I’ll go no more” (simply choosing to give up, reckless decision)
Give 5 quotes which demonstrate Lady Macbeth as powerful.
- “My dearest partner of greatness” (macbeth to l.macbeth)
- “Look like the innocent flower, / but be the serpent under’t”
- “Leave all the rest to me” (commanding)
- “I would, while it was smiling in my face, / Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, / and dash’d the brains out” (violent)
- “That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,” (she is unlike her mortal peers)
Give 4 quotes that demonstrate Macbeth as loyal.
- “This is a sorry sight” (he feels he’s sinned in killing King Duncan)
- “I think not of them” (the ‘weird sisters’/witches, keeping his thoughts pure)
- “I am settled, and bend up / Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.” (loyal to l.macbeth)
- “We will proceed no further in this business; / He hath honour’d me of late;” (loyal to king)
Give 5 quotes that demonstrate Macbeth as guilty.
- “Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell / that summons thee to heaven or to hell.” (he wishes to hide what hasn’t be done yet)
- “This a sorry sight.” (he can’t fathom what he’s done. Also there’s a constant emphasis of witnesses in this scene (A2S2) he’s fearful of what he’s done.)
- “Look on’t again I dare not” (^ again)
- “Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!” (if he could reverse his act he would)
- “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” (he wishes a god, any god, could save him. call to the divine after consorting with the supernatural)
Give 4 quotes that Macbeth as dishonest.
- “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man that function / Is smother’d in surmise” (lying to himself, as he eventually kills Duncan)
- “What is ‘t you say? the life?” (he pretends he can’t believe Duncan’s death)
- “Had I but died an hour before this chance, / I had lived a blessed time” (lying to his peers but also sort of true, as the death of Duncan leads to misfortune for macbeth)
- “The service and the loyalty I owe, / In doing it, pays itself” (lie to King Duncan - clearly not enough since he went and stole kingship)
Give 5 quotes linking to the supernatural, demonstrating their power.
- “So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!” (they knew what was to come already - or they made it come to be)
- “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!” (l.macbeth welcomes the spirits to fill her and she directs macbeth to kill Duncan once and for all)
- “‘Glamis hath murder’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor / Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’” (mirrors witches who made it so ‘sleep shall neither night nor day / hang upon his pen-house lid’)
- “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” (the devil lures him)
- “As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves” (macbeth describes the assassins as these. the ability to command demi-wolves suggests he holds power over the supernatural)
Explain the great chain of being.
God -> Angels -> Monarch -> Princes -> Noblemen (thanes) -> Commoners
This is a medieval Christian idea that was considered to be laid down by god. Macbeth is set in medieval times (1050).
Define social mobility.
Movement of individuals, families or groups through a social hierarchy.
What is an eponymous character?
Main character of media who has media named after them.
Define trochaic tetrameter.
Four trochees to a line. Witches speak in unfinished trochaic tetrameter, demonstrating their unnaturality.
Define iambic pentameter.
Inverse of trochaic tetrameter. Most of Macbeth is spoken in this meter.
What is an archetype?
A stereotype.
What is warrior culture?
Very important in life, being a brave and committed soldier was seen as the ultimate accolade.
Define tragic flaw/harmartia.
A negative character trait causing the character to pursue something they aren’t supposed to want.
What is a tragic hero?
A main character in a tragedy, who at their aristeia (point of greatness) has their harmartia lead to their downfall.
