Quotes final Flashcards
Just before Macbeth murders Duncan. His imagination symbolizes the impending murder. Macbeth has made his decision to kill the King and take the crown as his own.
Themes: Fate/Fortune, Appearance vs Reality, Nature vs Supernatural, Ambition
‘Is this a dagger which I see before me […] Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going’
Themes: Fate/Fortune, Nature vs Supernatural, Ambition
prophesizing that he will be promoted to thane of Cawdor and then king
believed in the evil power of witches and witchcraft.
‘All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter’
Macbeth - There is no justification for killing Duncan (he is my king, my guest and has been generous to me). The only thing motivating me is ambition, which makes people rush ahead of themselves toward disaster.
‘I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself’
Lady Macbeth - Themes: Appearance vs Reality, Evil/Darkness vs Grace/Light
Hide your true (evil) intentions: Metaphor plus biblical links (serpent represents the devil both in Old Testament and New Testament)
‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it’
Themes: ambition, evil/darkness vs grace/light
Personification. Macbeth says this to himself after he finds out that Malcolm has been selected as the next king.
‘Stars hide your fires/let light not see my black and deep desires’
Witches - Themes: Appearance vs Reality, Nature and the Supernatural, Evil/Darkness vs Grace/Light
is chanted by the three witches at the beginning of the play. It acts as a summary of what is to come in the tale. Shakespeare uses the phrase to show that what is considered good is in fact bad and what is considered bad is actually good.
‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’
This is interesting since the witches did not tell Macbeth that he would have to kill King Duncan. Moreover, it demonstrates the strength of Macbeth’s inner ambition.
‘muder is yet but fantastical’
Here Lady Macbeth, without consulting her husband, immediately decides that she will do whatever it takes to make Macbeth King – to propel him forward and nurture his success.
Women in the 16th and 17th centuries had no legal rights and were supposed to be submissive – e.g. do what their husbands/fathers wanted due to anxieties surrounding their nature (that they were naturally disobedient and unruly – needing to be tamed/controlled by their male counterparts).
Lady Macbeth’s ambition and ruthlessness initially is much more ‘manlike’ (she would have been played by a man).
‘Come you spirits […] unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty’
Themes: Appearance vs Reality, Evil/darkness vs Grace/Light, Guilt & Madness
Macbeth is trying to convince himself that by hiring assassins, he was free of guilt. The guilt had started degrading his sanity and this is the pivitol point as it begins to overtake his mentality.
‘Thou canst not say I did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me’
Themes: guilt and madness; evil/darkness vs grace/light
Macbeth – and he was asleep when he was murdered, showing a lack of courage on Macbeth’s part.
Macbeth feels guilty — and also vulnerable as he too could be killed in his sleep.
‘Macbeth does murder sleep’
Lady Macbeth is trying to wash (imaginary) blood off her hands – a symbol of her guilt/madness. In Act 2, Scene 2, just after Macbeth killed Duncan, there are other references to blood on hands:
‘Out, damned spot! Out, I say! […] Hell is murky’
shows that she changes over the course of the play, and becomes guilty
‘My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white’
this passage that all the oceans in the world wouldn’t be capable of washing the blood and guilt from his hands
‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand’
Shakespeare is saying here that Macbeth has involved himself in so many murders that it is as easy for him to carry on than to turn back. His growing obsession of killing, to get what he wants.
‘I am in blood stepped so far that I wade no more’
Clinging onto the witches prophecies, demonstrating their power.
‘I will not be afraid of death and bane till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane’
