Macbeth - P1 Flashcards
Key quotes for Macbeth: (8)
=”memorize another Golgotha”, “Bellona’s bridegroom” - Macbeth presented as such a hero at the start being compared to Jesus and God of war
=”foul and fair a day”-Macbeth is mimicking the witches
=”let not light see my black and deep desires” - contrasting imagery of dark and light
=”Vaulting ambition” -ambition is his fatal flaw
=”is this a dagger is see before me?” - point of peripeteia, questioning it, passing the blame
=”Macbeth shall sleep no more” -guilty, sleep is a symbol for innocence
=”solemn supper sir” - snake sounding, mischievous, plotting against Banquo
=”business” - disassociating the murder
Key quotes for Banquo: (6)
=”can the devil speak true?” - sees the witched as evil, doesn’t believe them
=”restrain me in the cursed thoughts” - he knows thinking about the witches is wrong
=”look to the lady” - gentleman of the time, nobleman
=”I fear thou played most foully for’t” - Banquo suspects Macbeth for killing Duncan, “played” as if it’s a game, alliteration of ‘f’ shows Banquo’s anger
=Macbeth compares Banquo to “Mark Antony’s was by Caeser” - saying that Banquo betrayed these poor people
=”May they not be my oracles as well” - wondering whether his prophecy may also come true
Key quotes for Lady Macbeth: (6)
=”too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” - defying expectations of a woman, sees Macbeth’s kindness as a weakness
=”Under my battlements” - taking charge, more powerful than Macbeth
=”fill me”…“full of direst cruelty” - “direst” superlative, evil
=”nor heaven peep through the blanket of dark” - contrast heaven and hell imagery, evil
=”look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” - look innocent but be evil, biblical reference to Adam and Eve
=”was the hope drunk wherein you dress’d yourself” - mocking Macbeth to manipulate him
=”help me hence, ho” - Lady Macbeth manipulating the nobles to not let them suspect her
Key quotes for Macduff: (6)
=”confusion now hath made his masterpiece” - personified “confusion” Macduff can’t believe that Duncan is dead
=”destroy your sight with a new Gorgon” - seeing Duncan dead is so horrific you will be turned to stone (classical illusion)
=”sacrilegious murder” - against God
=”look to the lady” - being a gentle man
=”all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop” - contrasting imagery, Macbeth ‘one fell swoop’ (like an eagle), Macduff’s family ‘chickens’
=”Here may you see the tyrant” - when talking about putting Macbeth’s head on a pole
Key quotes for the witches: (7)
=stage directions ‘thunder’, ‘thunder and lightening’ - pathetic fallacy
=”In thunder, lightning or in rain” - trochaic tetrameter, eerie, unnatural sound
=”when the battle’s lost and won” - paradox, makes them seem untrustworthy
=”done… won… sun” - rhyming triplet across two of the witches showing how they are unnaturally in sync
=”fair is foul, foul is fair” - paradox, makes them seem untrustworthy
=”hail” - repeated, lets the prophecy sink into the reader
=”his bark cannot be lost, yet it shall be tempest toss’d” - witches causing trouble, relate to James when he got stuck in a storm on his ship and blamed it on witches
Key quotes for Duncan: (4)
=”Go pronounce his present death, and with his former title greet Macbeth” - rhyming couplet to make it stand out, tainted title foreshadowing Macbeth’s demise
=”to find the mind’s construction in the face” - can’t see what people are thinking by their face
=”signs of nobleness shine like stars on all deservers” - make the audience feel bad for Duncan, make Macbeth’s fall more dramatic
=”this castle hath - pleasant seat” - dramatic irony, he is remarking on what a lovely place this is when he is going to be killed there
What genre is Macbeth?
Play - Tragedy
What era is Macbeth set in?
Jacobean
How should you answer a Macbeth question?
- read the question and the extract picking out 5-8 key quotes that you will use (language techniques)
- decide on themes that are relevant to the extract, question and the novel
- mention the fact that it is a play and how the audience will react to certain things
- DEPTH AND QUALITY OF ANALYSIS IS EVERYTHING
What are the contextual features to do with Macbeth?
- James I was obsessed with witches (wrote a book)
- people believed in the divine right of kings (that the king was chosen by God, it was a sin to aspire to be king)
- a year before Macbeth was written, the gunpowder plot took place
- James I was patron to the king’s men (Shakespeare’s company)
- Macbeth is set in Scotland, it is James I home country (related to Banquo)
What are some methods and techniques which are used throughout the play?
- imagery
- rhyme
- gothic
- place/setting
- pathetic fallacy
- supernatural
- iambic pentameter
- dramatic irony
- metaphors/similes
- stage direction
- repetition
- light and dark
What levels can the play Macbeth work?
- royal entertainment (written to appeal to King James - included his ancestors (Banquo, Fleance), features witches)
- moral lesson, that rebellion against the king is rebellion against God
- the effects of uncontrollable ambition can have on someone
Key quotes for Malcolm: (5)
=”To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy” -easy for a liar to pretend, not safe, need to get away
=”this tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues” - saying his name hurts
=”offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb t’ appease an angry god” - easy to offer me to satisfy an angry god like Macbeth
=”our country”…“it weeps, it bleeds”
=”is thine and my poor country’s to command” - i’m ready to serve you and our poor country
Key quotes for the theme of ambition: (5)
=”Vaulting ambition” (Macbeth) - fatal flaw is ambition
=”let not light see my black and deep desires” (Macbeth)
=”too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” (Lady Macbeth)
=”look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t” (Lady Macbeth)
=”When the battle is lost and won”, “lesser than Macbeth and greater” (Witches) - fuelling ambition
Key quotes for the theme of Loyalty and Betrayal / Good and Evil: (5)
=”the service and the loyalty i owe” (Macbeth) - hypercritical, dramatic irony, the audience already know Macbeth had been deciding to kill Duncan
=”I wish your horses swift and sure of foot” (Macbeth) - to Banquo [sybillance - snakey sound], dramatic irony plotting to kill Banquo
=”Thou played’st most foully for ‘t” (Banquo) - angry about Macbeth’s betrayal
=”screw your courage to the sticking place” (Lady Macbeth) - feels betrayed if Macbeth doesn’t obey her
=”sacrilegious murder”(Macduff) -betrayed by the death
