Macbeth Flashcards
(11 cards)
Noun - behaviour showing high moral standards
Virtue (righteousness, integrity)
Noun - great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle
Valour (His valour is tinged with what appears to be a barbaric enjoyment of slaughter for its own sake)
Noun - a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero
Harmartia - Macbeth’s was ambition
Macbeth in bloodbath - quote and comment
“in blood./ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning we’re as tedious as go o’er.” The (LBQ) visual of M thriving in a bloodbath is a gruesome depiction of his soul, which is certainly poisoned by paranormal spirits and damned for all eternity.
Tyrannical synonyms
Despotic, imperious
Adj - taking no account of other people’s wishes or opinions; domineering
Autocratic, arbitrary
Synonyms: evil
Noun: (wicked behaviour: vice, atrocity, iniquity) corruption, villainy, malevolence,
Adj: nefarious, despicable, fiendish, demonic, heinous, dastardly, sinful, vile, foul
Macbeth is ashamed of considering D’s murder. Image of darkness - quote and comment
After he hears the witches’ prophecy of his imminent kingship, M ruminates on the notion of killing D to usurp the throne. However, he swiftly acknowledges his deserving of shame and invoked the natural world to conceal his thoughts: “Stars, hide your fires; / Let light not see my black and deep desires.”
Comment on what it suggests that M wants darkness to hide his thoughts.
Loyalty, virtue, trustworthiness and all else that light symbolises are quenched be the temptation of dictorial supremacy.
Macbeth relies on darkness - 2 quotes
Darkness follows Duncan’s death: “dark night strangled the travelling lamp… darkness does the face of earth entomb.”
Before B’s assassination, macbeth calls on night to “scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day”
Noun - the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself
Equivocation (the witches are the embodiment of evil and equivocation)
