Macbeth : Themes and Messages Flashcards
authors purpose themes
Appearance vs Reality
(light vs dark imagery)
‘Let not light see my black and deep desires’
Appearance vs Reality
(biblical imagery)
‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it’
Appearance vs Reality
(Macbeth’s duplicity towards Duncan)
‘He is here in double trust’
Appearance vs Reality
(Duncan’s sons fear he was murdered by his closest men)
‘There’s daggers in men’s smiles’
Danger of female power
(maternal imagery)
‘Plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out’
Danger of female power
(rejecting femeninity)
‘Unsex me here’
Danger of excessive passion
(propelled by ambition)
‘Vaulting ambition which over leaps itself and falls’
Masculinity and Femeninity
(innocence of femeninity)
‘Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck’
Masculinity and Femeninity
(emasculating Macbeth to manipulate him)
‘Are you a man?’
Guilty soul and madness
(mental torture)
‘Full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!’
Guilty soul and madness
(foreshadowing)
‘have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?’ - banquo
Guilty soul and madness
(visions)
‘a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain’
Guilty soul and madness
(vision of dagger)
‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand’
Justice of God
(repercussions of sins)
‘It will have blood they say, blood will have blood’
Fate vs Free will
(Hecate)
‘He will come to know his destiny soon’
Fate vs Free will
(Macbeth conflicts with belief in supernatural prophecy)
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir”
Fate vs Free will
(light vs dark imagery)
‘Let not light see my black and deep desires’
Fate vs Free will
(prophecy)
‘None of woman born shall harm macbeth’
Kingship vs Tyranny
(Duncan, a loving, nurturing King)
‘I have begun to plant thee and will labour to make thee full of growing’
Kingship vs Tyranny
(Scotland suffering under Macbeth’s Tyrannical rule)
‘Our suffering country under a hand accursed’
Kingship vs Tyranny
(Malcolm fears the tyrant, Macbeth)
‘To offer up a weak, poor innocent lamb to appease an angry god’
Kingship vs Tyranny
(Macbeth’s Tyranny harming Scots)
‘This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues’
Importance of Natural Order
(nature being disrupted by Duncan’s murder)
‘Some say, the earth was feverous and did shake’
Importance of Natural Order
(Macbeth’s tyrannical rule impacting divine realm)
‘New sorrows strike heaven on the face’
Importance of Natural Order
(Macbeth’s tyrannical rule harming Scotland)
‘It weeps, it bleeds, and each day a new gash is added to her wounds.’
Fear
(fear of missing heaven)
‘We’d jump the life to come’
Fear
(idea of murder)
‘makes my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature’
Supernatural
(LM association to supernatural)
‘ come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts’
Triumph of good
(macduff when he kills macbeth)
‘behold, where stands
The usurper’s cursed head ‘
Kingship
(macbeth’s arrogance and incompetence as a king)
‘Bring me no reports, let them fly all’
Paranoia
(threats to macbeth’s throne after killing duncan)
‘We have scorched the snake not killed it”
Loss of morality
(Macbeth has killed macduff’s family)
‘My soul is too much charged with the blood of thine already’
Nihilism
(tragic ending)
Life is but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot
