QUOTESSSSSS Flashcards
“To know my deed, twere best not know myself.” - Reaction after killing Duncan
Macbeth has realised his innate desire to kill in this scene but doesn’t want to admit it. Psychopathic attraction to blood.
Cool context
Greek tragedy - hero has hamartia and a glimpse into fate and does anything possible to avoid it. Macbeth is different trying to reach his fate. Knows he can wait and become king “without [his] stir” but chooses not to rejecting fate and takes control himself for getting there. Shakespeare writing at a time when people stopped believing their lives were fated at birth. Shakespeare born to a glove maker and a wool farmer, doesn’t follow fate and changes his destiny.
“his silver skin lac’d with his golden blood”
Precious metals symbolise his royalty
Blood is gold not silver symbolising what is important to Macbeth, spilling blood.
“unseamed him from the nape to the chaps”
Macbeth is a fierce warrior and seen as noble when fighting against the Scottish rebel army.
Although, reveals his innate desire to kill
Alludes to his downfall and shows his bloodlust and psychopathic nature
“be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck” - about LM when planning B’s murder
Wants to protect his wife and shows his deep psychological understanding of her as he knows she will feel completely guilty about an unnecessary murder.
Prophecies show how B wont be king, his lineage will be. Macbeths fate is secure but he actively seeks out blood. Not ambitious for more power he has a false reason of jealousy to further disguise his true nature
“upon my head they plac’d a fruitless crown, and put a barren sceptre in my gripe”
He cannot have children shown as one has already died “I have given suck” jealous of having a lineage with Banquo. his spur for this is not ambition but bloodlust.
“Never shake thy gory locks at me […] thou can not say I did it”
“gory locks” of blood running down Banquo’s hair - blood that catches his attention as it is what fascinates him.
Turning point as nobles think he’s confessing to killing Duncan. Macbeth has engineered his own destruction his hamartia moment. His TRUE hamartia is his love for killing
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”
Macbeth is more wicked than the witches. Proves that Macbeth is driven by free will not the witches power.
“I am in blood stepped in so far” returning is “tedious”
He’s too deep in to stop killing. His fate is destined and he “wades” there by himself
“all the perfumes of arabia will not sweeten this little hand”
“the thane of fife had a wife where is she now?”
LM realises Macbeth is killing not for ambition but his own desires
“too full of the milk of human kindness” - LM A1S5 planning murder
LM doesnt understand Macbeth she is not the cold, calculated women shown but Macbeth is the TRUE catalyst to all the events in the play beginning with “dearest partner of greatness”
“infected be the air whereon they ride and damned all those who trust them”
“out, out brief candle” - Act 5
Candle religious symbolism showing the important and tragedy of her death
light = gods light holy
god = lm
Macbeth worships his wife and wants to take such supreme care of her even going into battle
“life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. signifying nothing” “poor player”
Macbeth is a poor player.
When we are alive we are just playing the acts of characters on a stage
god = idiot
god has created his own life and the flaws in him and is responsible of his own fate
Macbeth turning against god automatically condemns him to hell
Macbeth is taking no responsibility for his own actions
Nihilism - Life is pointless
Good or evil is indifferent
Macbeth has decided to die his future days seem “petty”
“Why should I play the roman fool, and die on mine own sword?”
In a roman tragedy he would kill himself to retain some of his honour although being a flawed hero
Takes this classical idea of heroism and rejects it
Macbeth is the “poor player” and wants to get to the end of the play to see how he dies
Cannot escape death
“thou loosest labour” - Macbeth vs Macduff
Suggest Macbeth is winning
Macduff was “untimely ripped”
‘Lay on, Macduff and damned be him that cries “hold enough”’ Macbeth means he can die in battle
Macbeth can still die a warrior and hero in his own mind
Irony as he is an anti-hero
DOESNT end play here showing him as a “dead butcher” (someone who just likes killing) and l’m as a
“fiend-like queen” - In the view of Malcolm Macbeth’s hamartia was his wife and his bloodlust
Patriarchal, Misogynistic view and how the view supports king James
Cautionary tale towards nobles about James.
“in thunder, lightning and rain” … “there to meet with Macbeth”
Witches can predict the future and control weather. Agents of foresight
Witches have the gift of foresight so Macbeth doesn’t have to do anything BUT cant control him can only tell him or manipulate him into doing stuff. Fate vs Free will and Macbeth is responsible (cautionary tale)
“why do I yield that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair?”
Macbeth asks himself what causes him to think of murdering Duncan when he does not have to
“If chance may have me king, why chance may crown me without my stir?”
Fate vs Free will but refers to fate as “chance” which is random and lucky. Repetition of it emphasises to himself that the longer he waits the more chance that this lucky, random uncertain even may not happen.
“oftentimes to win us to our harms, the instruments of darkness tell us truths” Banquo A1S3
Contrast to M for political message about supporting King James I
Shakespeare sets up Banquo as the antithesis to Macbeth
“it weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds.” A4S3
Malcolm about Scotland under macbeth
“to be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus”
“heat oppressed brain”
can literally say anything causes it. Heat = hell witches = satanic?? or hes satanic.
