Macbeth Key Quotes:

Question 1

“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”

Answer 1

• simile highlights the inwoven, noble facade LM wants M to display
• “flower” - associate with femininity suggests LM appealing to her husband to appear more feminine as she becomes more masculine
• imperative “look” suggests appearance is unauthentic
• imperative “be” highlights power LM has over M and how important it is to LM that M embodies the evil needed to achieve their desires
• Macbeth’s submission to thee bold commands connotes a humanistic view and how he feels his wife is equals
• “dearest partner in greatness” - endearment

Question 2

“Macbeth shall never be vanquished until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him”

Answer 2

• semantic field of kingship + nobility “great” and “high” appeal to Macbeth’s ambition nu establishing the wood and castle as symbol of his strength, nobility and power
• Witches using these adjectives ironically
• neutral verb “come” used instead of verb from semantic field of military by the witches in order to prevent Macbeth from analysing the prophecy from military perpective and foreseeing Malcolm’s plan to use the trees in Birnam Wood as a camouflage
• “come” implies wood move supernaturally and lulls Macbeth into fall sense of security - Shakespeare subtle suggesting that Macbeth/s violent acts are as a result of the Witches who were the pivotal force that caused him to start his series of murders

Question 3

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / Thats trust and frets his hours upon the stage / And then is heard no more. / It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”

Answer 3

• metaphor of “poor player” - life’s brevity + fleeting nature - suggests Macbeth in deep state of reflections here he is questioning the purpose of his life
• suggests that life is an illusion - have no control over our fate
• metaphor “tale” emphasises life’s fleeting nature and highlights how Macbeth no longer places value in life and its experiences
• reflects his nihilistic attitude at this point in the play
• “tale” - implies there is a message or moral purpose audience is meant to receive from watching Macbeth’s life
• alliteration of “t” - used by Macbeth to criticise himself - showing sense of guilt and remorse
• fricative alliteration in “full” and “fury” reveals Macbeth’s sense of rage at himself + pointlessness in life
• “nothing” - life as pointless struggle for his new status gave him no pleasure - he has no wife, children or future

Question 4

“Here’s the smell of blood still - all the perfume of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”

Answer 4

• “perfumes” insulates her delusional nature and her guilt taking form as hallucination to distract her from multiple murder
• “Arabia” connotes to place expensive and exotic - pinpointing to LM’s true heart of her character - desiring for the finer things in life
• “sweeten” implies her “hand” that helped in committing tyrannical; acts is untasteful and bitter - executes her realisation on how dirty her hands are and wanting them to be cleansed

Question 5

“It will have blood they say; blood will have blood”

Answer 5

• cycle of bloodshed - fees trapped in inevitability of his own violence
• repetition of noun “blood” implies Macbeth’s bloodlust is what drives him to killDuncan and assassinate other characters in play

Question 6

“Dead butcher and his fiend-like queen”

Answer 6

• “butcher” - connotes violence and brutality and epitomises Macbeth s a leader - he has brutally “butchered” Scotland in his own quest for power
• “fiend-like” suggests the evil of Lady Macbeth