Macbeth Quotes

Question 1

‘Fair is foul …’

Answer 1

‘… foul is fair’ WITCHES ACT 1 SCENE 1

• ‘good is bad, bad is good’
• manipulating Macbeth into thinking he needs to listen to them and rely on them
• king James I had an interest in witchcraft at the time.

Question 2

‘look like the innocent flower…’

Answer 2

‘… but be the serpent under’t’ ACT 2
- first part (suggestion)
- ‘innocent’
- last part (command)
- ‘be’ - imperative
- ‘Serpent’ biblical imagery, satanic, deadly,
- facade - let nothing show through

Question 3

‘Is that a …

Answer 3

‘… dagger I see before me’ MACBETH ACT 3

• hallucination
• a starting point for his insanity
• a moment of conflict within the act of regicide

Question 4

‘A little water will …’

Answer 4

‘… clear us of this deed’ LADY MACBETH
- water imagery
- doesn’t give it a second thought (confidence, ambition)
- contrast to her insanity later in the play when it mentally will not go away ‘perfumes’ ‘will this hand ne’er be clean?’

Question 5

‘Will great Neptune’s ocean …’

Answer 5

‘… wash this blood clean from my hand’ MACBETH
- water imagery
- pairs with lady m
- insanity
- guilt

Question 6

‘All perfumes of Arabia …’

Answer 6

‘… will not sweeten this little hand’ LADY MACBETH
- metaphor
- always follows her
- (.) statement, inescapable

Question 7

‘What’s done …’

Answer 7

‘… cannot be undone’ ACT 5 SCENE 1
LADY MACBETH
- accepts her fate
- finally acknowledging all the manipulation and lust for power was all for nothing.
- ‘Unsex me here’
Context - women

Question 8

‘Unsex…’

Answer 8

‘… me here’ LADY M ACT 1 SCENE 5
- she wants to be striped of her womanhood
- feels she is trapped in a woman’s body
- craves more power than what she has
- her Hamartia is her ambition and greed
- context to women

Question 9

‘Blood must …’

Answer 9

‘…Have blood’

Question 10

‘False face must hide..’

Answer 10

‘… what the false heart doth know’

Question 11

‘There’s daggers…’

Answer 11

‘… in men’s smiles’ DONALBAIN ACT 1
- foreshadowing
- regicide and the dagger soliloquy

Question 12

‘And live a coward…’

Answer 12

‘… in thine own asteem’

Question 13

‘I bear a …’

Answer 13

‘… charmed life’ MACBETH ACT 5
- his last sting of hope
- last resort
- mocking Macduff as if to say he is u beatable

Question 14

‘Fly good fleance, fly fly fly!…’

Answer 14

‘… Thou may’st revenge - O slave!’ ACT 3 BANQUO
- avenging his father
- contrast to ‘noble partner’
- repetition- shows his love for his son and he is in need to know that he will survive.
- shows his selflessness- willing to die in order to keep his son alive.
- emphasising him and macbeths FOIL characters.

Question 15

‘Turn hellhound …

Answer 15

Turn !’ MACDUFF ACT 5
- imperative
- hellhound - biblical - hell - spawn of satan
- (!) emphasis on his anger

Question 16

Stars hide you fires; …

Answer 16

…let not light see my dark and deep desires’ MACBETH ACT 1 SCENE 4
- light imagery
-

Question 17

Then you …

Answer 17

… we’re a man’ LADY M ACT 1 SCENE 7
- insulting him
- questioning his masculinity
- AO3 - men weren’t men without it