Macbeth - Quotes and Analysis Flashcards
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1) - The Witches
(5 analysis)
- Paradoxical phrase - chanted => their speech is conflicting, and what they appear to say, does not correlate with reality - oxymoron between society + supernatural
- Their conflicting language is notable throughout the play, reinforcing their deceitful and duplicitous nature
- Theme of Appearance vs Reality
- Relates to Macbeth’s first line “so foul and fair a day I have not seen”
- Chanted => gives impression of a spell
“Brave Macbeth … unseam’d him from th’ nave to th’ chaps” (1.2) - Sergeant
(4 analysis)
- Foreshadowing/future dramatic irony
- Exemplifies his violence
- Merciless - prone to destruction => effectively torture/ extreme measures + aggressive tendencies
- Shows the Power of Macbeth and his capacity to destroy
“What are these,/ So wither’d and so wild in their attire,/ That look not like th’ inhabitants of th’ earth” (1.3) - Banquo
(4 analysis)
- Banquo perceives the witches overt evil and dehumanises them in his description
- The witches’ physiognomy (when appearances are believed to be reflective of your true character) exposes them as inhumane and evil
- Banquo is portrayed as perceptive as it was believed he wan an ancestor of James I, this is a form of flattery
- “wither’d”, suggests they are old, but “wild” suggests they are dangerous/ savage
“why do I yield to that suggestion/ Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,/ and make my seated heart knock at my ribs” (1.3) - Macbeth
(3 analysis)
- Aside => his inner most thoughts he doesn’t want to share
- Still drawn to the idea of kingship + killing Duncan, even though he acknowledges it is bad
- Physical response - suggests the power of these thoughts + how his body is reacting to the thoughts in his mind
“I do fear thy nature … is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” (1.5). - Lady Macbeth
(3 analysis)
- Too compassionate
- Suggesting she will replace this milk with evil
- The noun “milk” is a symbol for femininity and maternal nurturing, Lady M rejects notions of femininity
“Come you spirits … unsex me here/ And fill me … top-full/ Of direst cruelty … Come to my woman’s breasts/ And take my milk for gall” (1.5) - Lady Macbeth
(5 analysis)
- It seems she is almost casting a spell, as the nouns “spirits” and “night” allude to a dark supernatural force
- She yearns to be rid of her femininity to encompass the inhumane and witchlike role that would grant her power.
- Her androgynous nature would be perceived to be supernatural due to the rigid gender roles of the Jacobean. era.
- She wants to be entirely violent with no remnants of femininity => rejecting the notions of femininity + maternal nurturing, as it is stopping her from being entirely violent
- Sees emotion as synonymous with weakness and by eradicating this weakness, she can become the barbaric tyrant she dreams of being
“look like th’ innocent flower/ But be the serpent under’t” (1.5) - Lady Macbeth
(3 analysis)
- Religious imagery => references Adam + Eve, and the power Eve had over Adam
- Biblical allusion to the “serpent” seen in the fall of mankind in Genesis where the serpent tempts Adam and Eve, is used by LM to highlight how effective deception can be when executed with an “innocent” facade
- Links to what Duncan says in 1.4
“his virtues/ Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d against/ And falls on th’ other” (1.7) - Macbeth
(2 analysis)
- If Duncan is killed, his virtues will scream
- Links to Great Chain of Being and Divine Right => his death is against God, so God will react and spread this information
“I have no spur … only/ Vaulting Ambition, which o’erleaps itself/ And falls on th’ other” (1.7) - Macbeth
(4 analysis)
- He has no real reason to commit this crime other than ambition
- The verb vaulting describes Macbeth’s mammoth ego - his ambition is his hamartia
- The personification makes his ambition appear like a human-like force, controlling and plaguing his innocent mind
- The metaphor likens Macbeth to a jockey riding his ambition - his ambition is akin to a barbaric animal
“I would, while it was smiling in my face/ Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,/ And dash’d the brains out …” (1.7) - Lady Macbeth
(3 analysis)
- The merciless act of rejecting maternal inclinations characterises LM as violent and determined => she effectively competes with Macbeth who as a man of that era, couldn’t be weaker than a woman
- Foreshadows violence later on in the play
- Suggests she has lost a child => could be viewed as a trigger for her descent to madness as she is a grieving mother, therefore not in her right frame of mind
Descriptions of the dagger (2.1) - Macbeth
(3 analysis)
- “is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand Come let me clutch thee” - This suggests he is ridding himself of responsibility over the murder he will commit. Even before committing the treacherous act of regicide, he understands that it will plague his conscience so he poses that it has been put “towards” him - he has involuntarily been subject to this inner turmoil.
- Calls the dagger an “instrument” - Alluding to how the “instruments of darkness” (the witches), with their dark musicality, have bought him to this point of sheer inner turmoil.
- “Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell/ That summons thee to heaven or to hell.” - M is still aware of God’s judgement and it’s significance. Knell = funeral bell, foreshadows Duncan’s death in a way that exemplifies certainty. Caesura at end of line.
“That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold:/ What hath quench’d them, hath given me fire” (2.2) - Lady Macbeth
(3 analysis)
- Goes against gender stereotypes
- Nervous energy
- “Fire” - ambition - fuel - can get quickly out of control
“the sleeping, and the dead,/ Are but as pictures: ‘tis the eye of childhood/ That fears a painted devil” (2.2) - Lady Macbeth
(5 analysis)
- Lm is scolding M for being a cowards so haunted by his recent action
- He killed Duncan but didn’t finish the deed
- Simile
- Thematic - strong woman
- It is only the memories of childhood that make you fear something that looks real but can’t hurt you
Macbeth: “Will all great Neptune’s Ocean wash this blood./ Clean from my hand.”
Lady Macbeth: “A little water clears us of this deed” (2.2)
(5 analysis)
- Neptune is massive, and M is empathising his guilt about the deed he committed
- LM’s overpowering ambition obstructs her from seeing her husbands genuine distress
- She uses litotes (under-exaggeration)to downplay the murder
- Laced with irony as LM shifts to a melodramatic state of insanity and begins speaking in hyperbole as the guilt takes over
- Euphemism => referring to murder as a “deed”
“lamentings heard i’ th’ air;/ Strange screams of death” (2.3) - Lennox
(2 analysis)
- In these lines, spoken just before Duncan’s body is discovered, Lennox tells Macbeth about the violent storm that occurred outside the castle on the night of the king’s murder => pathetic fallacy
- Powerful winds blew down through people’s chimneys, carrying noises that sounded like “strange screams of death” and people mourning (“lamentings”) => foreshadowing
