Macbeth Act 4 Flashcards
1
Q
- Shakespeare’s stage directions
- Reference to beginning of play - meeting in Thunder
- Witches casting spell with use of cauldron
A
“Thunder.” “With a cauldron.”
2
Q
- Rhyming couplet
- Incantation
- Use of double in other characters demonstrates witches influence
- Repetition
A
“Double, double toil and trouble;/Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
3
Q
- Characterisation of Macbeth
- He is now wicked - witch is referring to him as wicked, so if something as evil as that is happening then it must be true??
A
“Something wicked this way comes.”
4
Q
- Light and dark imagery
- Can refer to witches as midnight hags
A
“You secret, black and midnight hags!”
5
Q
- Foreshadowing
- Witches tricking Macbeth
A
“Macbeth: beware Macduff”
6
Q
- Blood imagery
- Macbeth is cocky, arrogant
- Change in character, characterisation
A
“Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn/The power of man.”
7
Q
- Witches somehow know that Macduff was born by caesarean section
- Tricking Macbeth - their partial responsibility for his demise
- equivocation
A
“None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
8
Q
- Motif of sleep
- Innocence
A
“And sleep in spite of thunder.”
9
Q
- Rhetoric, foreshadowing, dramatic irony
- Macbeth will kill anyone who threatens him
A
“Then live, Macduff, what I need fear of thee?”
10
Q
- Security as King
- Use of double - witches influence
A
“But yet I’ll make assurance double sure.”
11
Q
- False confidence
- Dramatic irony
- nature imagery
A
“Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath/to time and mortal custom.”
12
Q
- Banquo’s line of kings
- Shakespeare’s stage directions
- Glass symbolises a mirror, reflects the line going on forever
A
“last with a glass in his hand [;/Banquo’s ghost following]”
13
Q
- Th’crack of doom - doomsday, the thunder of the day of judgement, a Christian belief that God judges those on Earth for their deeds (held accountable)
- Macbeth is fearful of this, and fearful of losing his power
A
“What, will the line stretch out to th’crack of doom?”
14
Q
- Macbeth taking different approach
- Turning point
A
“Let this pernicious hour,/Stand aye accursèd in the calendar.”
15
Q
- Repetition of questions
- Decline in Macbeth’s mental state - did he imagine it?
A
“Saw you the weïrd sisters?”
“Came they not by you?”
16
Q
- Changed character, acts on feelings
- No morals, no guilt
- No LM influence!!
A
“The very firstlings of my heart shall be/The firstlings of my hand.”
17
Q
- Cool - is a binary for red hot anger
- Not thinking actions through anymore
- rhyming couplet
A
“No boasting like a fool;/This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool.”
18
Q
- Lady Macduff vs LM
- Bird imagery - vulnerable, no husband to protect her
- Innocence + family
A
“Will fight/Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
19
Q
- Building dramatic tension and intensity - Macbeth is doing this
- Don’t know what a good man Macduff is - comparison between two families
A
“Liars and/swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.”
20
Q
- Not strong enough
- Comparison between LMD + LMB
- Innocence - good is not always rewarded - disruption of natural order
- More innocent people killed
A
“Do I put up that womanly defence,/To say I have done no harm?”
21
Q
- Son defending his father until his last breath
- Villain = Macbeth (murderer is acting on his direction)
- Strong, loving family
A
“Thou liest, thou shag-haired villain.”
22
Q
- LMD is killed offstage
Shakespeare didn’t want to show this onstage - suggests brutality - woman being killed is different?
A
“Exit [Lady Macduff] crying ‘Murder’ “
23
Q
- Bleak time for Scotland
- Metaphor, Christian affiliation
A
“New sorrows/Strike heaven on the face.”
24
Q
- Characterisation of Macbeth
- Sensory imagery
- Cursed, witches
A
“This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues.”
25
- Dramatic irony
- Builds dramatic tension
Malcolm is saying to Macduff that Macbeth has not wronged him
"He hath not touched you yet."
26
- Characterisation of Macbeth
- Macbeth has been found out
"I am not treacherous."
"But Macbeth is."
27
- Allusion
- Light and dark imagery
- The brightest is Lucifer, who fell from God's grace - Macbeth is Lucifer
- Christianity
"Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell."
28
- Covering true intentions behind a face
- Malcolm understands the human condition which was Duncan's weakness
"Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,/ Yet grace must still look so."
29
- Macduff's family
- Strong family values
- symbolism
"Those strong knots of love."
30
- Blood imagery
- Macduff wants a better time for Scotland
- personification
"Bleed, bleed, poor country."
31
- Macbeth is a tyrant
- Scotland is being run poorly by Macbeth
"For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp."
32
- Personification of Scotland
- Bloody play
"It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash/Is added to her wounds"
33
- Light vs Dark imagery, binaries
- Others may still see Macbeth as good?
Malcolm worried no-one will believe his innocence - Malcolm says that his "vices" are far worse than Macbeth's
"black Macbeth/Will seem as pure as snow."
34
- Binary to noble Macbeth
- Characterisation
"Devilish Macbeth"
35
- Personification of Scotland
- How dire things are
- Ross telling of Macbeth being a tyrant
"It cannot/be called our mother, but our grave"
36
- Bird imagery
- Macduff's reaction to the news of his family
- Contrasts with Macbeth's reaction to the death of LM
"O hell-kite!"
"What, all my pretty chickens and their dam/At one fell swoop?"
37
- Gender roles in Jacobean society
- Malcolm encouraging Macduff to avenge his family
- Simile
"Dispute it like a man."
38
- Cannot be unfeeling
- Macduff is the ideal soldier
- Simile
"But I must also feel it as a man"
39
- Get revenge
- Symbolism of grief
- Let grief become anger
- No time to grieve too much
- Audience has admiration for Macduff
"Be this the whetstone of your sword."
40
- Contrasts with beginning of play, Characterisation of Macbeth
"This fiend of Scotland."
41
- Nature imagery
- Ready to kill Macbeth
"Macbeth/Is ripe for shaking."
42
- Gender roles
- Men defending women
"This tune goes manly."
43
- Heaven or God
- The great chain of being
- Power above = angels
"Power above/put on their instruments."
44
- Dark vs Light imagery
- Macbeth won't wake the next day
"The night is long that never finds the day."
