Macbeth's cruelty

Question 1

Act 3, Scene 4

Answer 1

‘safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty gashes on his head’ said the murderers

Question 2

How is Macbeth presented as a tyrant?

Answer 2

he allows his desire for power to drive his actions
he is so afraid of losing the throne that he starts killing anyone who represents a threat to his reign
he resorts to violence in order to solve problems, instead of trying to find a way to preserve lives.

Question 3

Act 4 Scene 1

Answer 3

‘give to the edge o’ the sword his wife, his babes’
–> kills Macduff’s family only in an attempt scare Macduff

Question 4

Act 4 Scene 5

Answer 4

‘I have supp’d full with horrors; direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts cannot once start me.’
–> pursuits of ambition and paranoia, trying to gain and cling onto power, have left him disconnected from any and all human emotions and morality.