Macbeth Flashcards
Act 1 Scene 1
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair, // Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
Supernatural
- Parallelism - repetition of words in a different order
- rhyming couplet - crazed, hysterical, causes fear of female sexuality
- engages the audience and presents the witches as intimidating and omniscient
- paradox - contradictory statement, reflexive of their subversive world view - goodness is bad and misdeeds are good.
- fricative alliteration - conveys a mysterious and light atmosphere. Ironic as witches only appear in dark atmostpheres.
- Alludes to later in the play when good people appear bad and bad people appear good.
Act 1 Scene 3 - “So foul and fair a day I have not seen” ~ Macbeth
Act 1 Scene 2
“Which smoked with bloody execution, // Like Valour’s minion carved out his passage”
- “smoked” - reference to hell, Great Chain of Being is being destabilised. Foreshadows Macbeth killing Duncan and disrupting the natural order.
- “carved” - excessive, skilled
- “passage” - trying to claim the battlefield his
- not in control, he’s a loyal subject and a soldier
- simile - shows that he is part of a great power as “Valour” is capitalised: relates to god deploying him
- potrayed as masculine unlike later when Lady Macbeth emasculates him
- “bloody” - used to express anger, Macbeth can’t control his emotions. There’s so much blood from all the killings - connotes violence.
- Later contrasts when he is called a “tyrant” shows how easily Macbeth can be influenced.
Act 1 Scene 5
“yet do I fear thy nature, // It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness”
- Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s masculinity
- The noun “milk” - natural and white associates with purity. Associates with a comforting and soothing nature - not the qualities Lady Macbeth thinks are required to become king. Context - women should be gentle and kind, but not men.
- Metaphor - despite Macbeth’s reputation as a brave warrior, Macbeth has a strong sense of passion.
- “too full” - implies he is good natured but it will stop him achieving the crown
- The noun “human” is significant as Lady Macbeth is suggesting that Macbeth needs to be inhuman, perhaps even supernatural like the witches, if he needs to succeed.
Act 1 Scene 7
“that his virtues // Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against// The deep damnation of his taking-off.”
- “angels” - symbolise heaven, depicts the holy nature of his actions.
- “plead” - the value of his appealing has angelic powers which is a powerful testimony to the moral strength and praiseworthy nature of Duncan.
- dental alliteration - gives a sense of authority to Macbeth which would scare the contemporary audience as Duncan should have more power than Macbeth. This disrupts the idea of natural order and the great chain of being. As Duncan is appointed by God, Macbeth is playing God and this contrasts to the angelic nature of Duncan.
- “trumpet-tongued” - the angels will have a powerful, far-reaching voice which will reach God, who will then punish Macbeth for his actions.
- “deep damnation” - dark imagery suggesting that Macbeth is aware of how the murder would open the door to a dark and sinful world A.K.A hell.
Act 1 Scene 5
“Stars hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires”
Shows Macbeth wishes to remain in complete darkness and invisible, so that his deep desires can’t be observed
Mataphors of “light” and “dark”
Plural nouns create a semantic field of light - religious. Wants to hide sedire from god
Juxtaposition between light and black - suggests to Macbeth’s inwardly conflict between a path of morality and ambition
Alliteration - emphasises how macbeth has been corrupt by overpoewring ambition as it controls bhis thoughts and soon hhis actions.*
Act 1 Scene 5
“Unsex me here …Of direst cruelty!”
- Proposes her belief that ambition can only be filled by masculine role
- Wants to defy the natural woman behaviour so calls for the witches to carry it out for her
- not cruel by nature- foreshadows inability to cope with guilt in the play
- direst highlights the extreme lengths she is willing to go to
Act 1 Scene 7
“If it were done when ‘tis done// It were done quickly”
- Euphemism - can’t explicitly say murder, shows his hesistation. Reveals later how much of an effect Lady Macbeth really has on him.
- Foreshadowing - shows that Macbeth perceives that the murder of Duncan could initiate a cycle of violence that will eventually destroy him, which happens. Shows the consequences when he thinks with his heart instead of his head.
- Repetition - emphasises inner state of turmoil, knows Duncan is a good king and he can’t dirsupt the Great Chain of Being as it would be playing God.
- Shows selfishness as he’s dismissing Duncan’s future death with the adverb “quickly”. It will only benefit him.
- Dental alliteration - Shows the that Macbeth has authority which would cause fear with the contemporary audience as Duncan should have more power than Macbeth as he was chosen by God, so Macbeth is playing God.
“Is this a dagger which I see before me”
- rhetorical questions - demonstartes how macbeth remains conflicted uo to the murder of ducan
- suggesting his sanity
- dagger - emphasised the vilence og tbe act - foreshadwoing hte haunting of banquo
- Shows the immense guilt he has and forshadows Lady Macbeth’s hallucinations.
Act 2 Scene 2
“Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep”
- Demonstartes his immediate guilt - evokes small amount of sympaths of the AUDIENCE HOWEVER IT WAS STILL AN unforgivable sin in Jacobean society.
- Franctic language portrays fear for consequences of actions
- Repetition sleep - symbolises Macbeth’s lack of sleep emphasising his guilt, natural order is being disrupted.
- Sleep is being victimised and its a natural thing showing that the natural order has been disrupted
- Foreshadows Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking
Act 3 Scene 1
“Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown // And put a barren sceptre in my gripe”
- contrasta to Banquo’s roots
- Barren suggest emptiness showing that being king wasn’t as fulfilling as he predicted. Symbolises the people who are with him when he gets attacked
- Semantic field of empty, foreshadows his nihilistic views in the last act.
Act 3 Scene 2
“Nought’s had, all’s spent // Where our desire is got without content”
- She’s lost everything perhaps even her control over Macbeth
- Thinks that death is better than current situation which foreshadows her death
“Here’s the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
- the big sin contrasts to the small hand showing that LM has los power and is worthless
- not iambic pentameter - she’s gone out of contol
- senses evoke memory - despite desire to supress her natural revoltion at murder memory returns
- blood highlights rejection of aggression and brutality
- feminine words suggest her guilt as she tries to be feminine unlike the start of the play
act 2 secne 2
“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood // Clean from my hand?”
- violence links him to the crime
- rhetorical question suggests heknow the anser but cant accept it conveys guilt
- eventhough macbethhas committedsin hes still freffering ti god shows hes a bit illogical
- neptune god of ocean- superior but sin is so big even neptune cant solve it making it supernatural
- ocean - connotes to tranquil and contrasts with his frantic behaviour
Act 2 Scene 3
“Violent love // And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature”
- Has a love for violence
- oxymoron - shows that macbeth cannot live without violence as love is a natural feeling
- Descnds into hell as he becomes a tyrannical ruler
- Semantic field of violence
- Looks unnatural, refers to divine right of kings as you can’t change God’s will. Refers to the witches and suggests their significant influence on him
- The “s” sound in “gashed stabs” - suggests that the act was done swiftly showing Macbeth’s conflicted thoughts and perhaps his feminine behaviour
- “gashed” - puts emphasis on the multiple deep cuts which shows Macbeth’s stong ambition for power
Act 3 Scene 4
“It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood.”
- repetition - a tide of murder has how been initiated. Seems chant-like refers to the witches
- harsh plosives suggests his nochalence to the sins he commited as he shows he’s not empathetic, shows no signs of remorse.
- semantic field of death forshadowing the future murders
- peripeteia - the point of no return. Everything goes wrong from this point
- Future tense reiterates the idea of the future murders
- “They” - could be the witches and it’s said three times for the three witches
