quotes Flashcards
Metaphor of a candle
“Out, out brief candle”
Metaphor of dawn that will soon break to displace night
“The night is long that never finds the day.”
Dramatic irony of witches prophecy to Macbeth
“All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”
Biblical allusion to Neptune, Roman god of sea
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?”
Simile of Lady Macbeth likening Macbeth to a book
“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters.”
Repetition of Macbeth’s reflection on what will come “To-morrow”
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day”
Macabre, gruesome animal imagery
“Duncan’s horses… Turned wild in nature… [and] ate each other.”
Euphemism of how Lady Macbeth speaks about death
“Is he dispatch’d?”
Soliloquy of Lady Macbeth exposing her unnatural desires
“Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood”
Similar to the chorus of the Aristotelian tragedy, symbolic representation of a common man
Shakespeare’s characterisation of the ‘Old man’
motif of guiltless “sleep”
“sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care”
motif that sleep becomes a forbidden comfort
“Macbeth shall sleep no more.”
Dramatic irony, Banquo’s ghost is in their midst
Banquo’s ghost
Biblical allusion to Pontius Pilate
“A little water clears us of this deed.”
Simile of Macbeth concealing his murderous crimes with innocence
“Look like th’ innocent flower,
But be the serpent under ’t.”
Paradox to contrast two juxtaposing words, can be interpreted as a transgressive paradox blurring boundaries between two words
“fair is foul, and foul is fair”
Analytical metaphor of the rare occurrence of an eclipse
“tis day…dark night [still] strangles the travelling lamp…emtomb[ing]…living light.”
Repetition of ‘f’ consonance and repetition of ‘fair’ and ‘foul’
“Fair is foul and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
personification of ‘yesterday’
“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death”
repetition of ‘wouldst’ from Lady Macbeth
“What thou wouldst highly/ That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false/ And yet wouldst wrongly win.”
personifies and creates associations
“dark night strangl[ing] the travelling lamp” or even “entomb[ing]” the earth’s light. Shakespeare’s use of lexis within these extracts, such as “strangles…[and] entombs”
motif of darkness suggesting that Macbeth has become unnatural and corrupted
“stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires”
foreshadow of Macbeth’s ‘wickedness’
“something wicked this way comes”
juxtaposition of witches appearances
“You should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so.”
