Random Macbeth Flashcards
‘Macduff was from his mothers womb untimely ripped’
Reaction = when MD faces MB in the final scene, he reveals to MB and the audience that he was born by caesarean.This is cathartic for the audience - they know MB has become so evil he has to die, and MD kills him avenging his family’s murders.
Context = the natural order has been restored as Malcom becomes king
‘Our country sinks beneath the yoke… it weeps, it bleeds’
Language = personification. Scotland is represented as a suffering slave or beast o burden under MBs violent dictatorship as people are regularly dying from MB being paranoid.
Reader = audience realise MB must be stopped as he Is destroying the country.
‘Fit to govern/ no, not to live. O nation miserable…’
Language = Malcom tests MD pretending to have a sinful character. MD’s rhetorical question shows he refuses to support the sinful king because this will just continue Scotlands suffering. Malcom is then satisfied that MD is loyal and patriotic.
‘Stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires’
Language = adjectives ‘black’ and ‘deep’ suggests MB knows his murderous ambition is morally wrong but also very strong. The starts symbolise the light of heaven - he does not want god to see what he is planning to do, but he is going to commit the murder anyway.
‘Sacrilegious murder hath broke open the Lords anointed temple’
Language = metaphor. Duncan’s stabbed body is compared to a temple that has been broken into. MD’s use of a religious semantic field establishes his moral goodness.
Context = DRK. Jacobeans believed in the DRK. Jacobeans believed in the DRK, therefore murdering the king was an act against god.
‘There’s daggers in mens smiles’
Language = metaphor. Malcom and Donalbain realise that another thane killed their father and that they cannot trust anyone, so they flee to safety.
‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’
Language = paradox. That which is good can be evil and vice - versa. The prediction that MB will become king seems to be good but leads him to commit evil.
‘Instruments of darkness’
Language = metaphor. Banquo realises the witches could be evil agents of the devil and tempt MB to commit sin.
‘Juggle fiends’
Language = adjectives - MB knows that the witches have tricked him and he can be defeated; noun - shows he knows that they are evil and have led him to commit evil.
Context = warns the audience of the dangers of witchcrafts
