Key Quotations From Themes + Characters Flashcards
key quotations about guilt
“Will all great neptunes oceans wash these hands” It is significant that Macbeth refers to a pagan god - Neptune - rather than the Christian God here. It suggests that he knows he gave up God when he committed regicide.
Reoccurring motif of blood
“My hands are of your colour, but i shame to wear a heart so white” - act 2 scene 2
“Do not shake thy gory locks at me” - hallucinations of Banquo’s ghost; “gory” symbol of blood emphasising guilt
“Macbeth does murder sleep -the innocent sleep” The repetition of “sleep” shows that Macbeth is now preoccupied by his guilty conscience. Sleep is a symbol of innocence and a clear conscience in the play. “Macbeth shall sleep no more” consequences for regicide
“Is this a dagger i see before me”He wonders if it is real or if his guilty conscience has imagined it “or is it a dagger of the mind”
“O full of scorpions is my mind”- metaphor this reflects how his worries are affecting his sanity
“How is’t with me, when every noise appals me” - every noise horrifies him - paranoid
5 key quotations about violence
REOCCURRING MOTIF OF BLOOD
Lady Macbeth would have “dashed the brains out” of their child
“Do not shake thy gory locks at me”
“And Duncan’s horses […]// Tis said they eat each other” Act 2
“I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more”
“Unseamed him from the nave to the chops”
‘It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood’
— Act III, scene 4
“Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him” LM
4 key quotations and structure about the supernatural
- “Such a fair and foul day I have not seen” - similar to the witches
- Trochaic tetrameter instead of iambic pentameter
Rhyme
Reference to familiars
“You should be women// and yet your beards” - “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?”
“Do not shake thy gory locks at me” - LM saying “come you spirits, take my milk for gall unsex me here” -> commanding spirits, repetition of “cum” emphasises how she is instructing the witches and subverting stereotypes
5 key quotations about gender
“Unsex me here”
“Dashed the brains out” of her child
“Come you spirits”
“ take my milk for gall
“Under my battlements”
“My dearest partner in greatness”
“Dearest chuck” - patronising - act 3 scene 2 - reforms back to gender stereotypes and she also has a lot less lines
“Too full of human kindness”
“When you durst do it, then you were a man”
4 key quotations about ambition
“O full of scorpions is my mind ” - act 1 scene 3 his ambition is poisonous
‘I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent but only Vaulting ambition”
“Look like the innocent flower but be the serpamt under’t”
“Stars hide your fires/ let not light see my black and deep desires” - needs to hide his ambitions as it is such a sin
“Come you spirits” “take my milk for gall” unsex me here”
“It’s too full o’the milk of human kindness” - LM’s ambition - manipulation
“I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more”
Ambition has taken him too far he cannot turn back now
His hamartia is his ambiton
Banquo also ambitious “i dreamt last night of the 3 weird sisters”
“What is this a dagger i see before me” - ambiguous is it his ambition or the supernatural
BANQUO key quotations
“My noble partner” - equal and good friends
Connotations of admiration
“What does the devil speak true”
juxtaposition between “devil” and “true” have contrasting connotations - showing his concern
Doesn’t believe witches
“I fear thou played’st most foully for it” shows his lack of trust for Macbeth
This is done in a soliloquy
MACBETH KEY QUOTATIONS
In act 1 he battles with his feelings of right and wrong but then turns bad
“Only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the ‘other”
Metaphor
Recognises ambition will be his downfall
“Brave Macbeth” - admired by others
Later on in the play he is described as a “tyrant” and a “dead butcher”
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen”
This line echoes the witches’ words and establishes a connection between them and Macbeth
“Stars hide your fires/ let not light, see my black and deep desires”- good and evil, Macbeth, turning away from goodness. The rhyme in the couplet emphasises the sinfulness of his burning ambitions.
Lady Macbeth key quotations
“My dearest love” - m and lm equal at start of the play, then M says “my dearest chuck”
“Too full of the milk of human kindness” - maternal imagery to manipulate M into committing regicide
“Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here” - subverts female stereotypes in this renaissance era and shows her ambition for Macbeth to become king - directing the supernatural
“when you durst do it, then you were a man”
Shows her dominance over Macbeth by giving her more lines in scenes - changes later on.
“My hands are of your colour, but i shame to wear a heart so white” - act 2 scene 2 - white symbol of cowardice- manipulating M
“Out damned spot, Out!”
“Will all the perfumes of Arabia sweeten this little hand”
What is Macbeth
A tragic hero
Lady Macbeth development
Gets less lines as the play goes on
“Dearest chuck” patronising instead of “my dearest partner in greatness”
“Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck” Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s roles have changed by this point. He doesn’t even consult her about murdering Banquo, suggesting that it will be better for her to be “innocent” of what he is doing so it doesn’t upset her.
Witches key quotes
“When shall we meet again, in thunder lightning or rain?”
They speak in trochaic tetrameter as opposed to iambic pentameter
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” Macbeth says “ so foul and fair a day I have not seen”
How is guilt shown to make Lady Macbeth mad?
“ Will, these hands ever be clean”
Recurring symbolism of blood showing her desperation to end her guilt .
Religion and the supernatural
“ nature seems dead […] witchcraft, celebrates” contrasting images of death and celebration are used to highlight the ascendancy of evil over good. References to the death of nature. Also foreshadows how Macbeth is about to break the great chain of being by killing the king.
“ the supernatural/ cannot be ill; cannot be good”
“ Come to my woman’s breasts/ and take my milk for gall” - “gall” was believed, create anger and aggression. Shakespeare refers to this to emphasise the idea of the supernatural and violent abnormal and a destroyer of innocence.
The bad characters in the player, either supernatural or influenced by the supernatural
Secrets and lies
“Look like the innocent flower/ but be the serpent under’t”
“let not light see my black and deep desires” - worried by the strength of his ambition
Banquo “I dreamt last night and three weird sisters”, Macbeth “I think not of them”
The audiences, awareness of Macbeth’s ambition creates dramatic irony as he is lying to his best friend
What time period is Macbeth set in?
Medieval times
