Macbeth : Themes and Messages

Question 1

Appearance vs Reality
(light vs dark imagery)

Answer 1

‘Let not light see my black and deep desires’

Question 2

Appearance vs Reality
(biblical imagery)

Answer 2

‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it’

Question 3

Appearance vs Reality
(Macbeth’s duplicity towards Duncan)

Answer 3

‘He is here in double trust’

Question 4

Appearance vs Reality
(Duncan’s sons fear he was murdered by his closest men)

Answer 4

‘There’s daggers in men’s smiles’

Question 5

Danger of female power
(maternal imagery)

Answer 5

‘Plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out’

Question 6

Danger of female power
(rejecting femeninity)

Answer 6

‘Unsex me here’

Question 7

Danger of excessive passion
(propelled by ambition)

Answer 7

‘Vaulting ambition which over leaps itself and falls’

Question 8

Masculinity and Femeninity
(innocence of femeninity)

Answer 8

‘Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck’

Question 9

Masculinity and Femeninity
(emasculating Macbeth to manipulate him)

Answer 9

‘Are you a man?’

Question 10

Guilty soul and madness
(mental torture)

Answer 10

‘Full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!’

Question 11

Guilty soul and madness
(foreshadowing)

Answer 11

‘have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?’ - banquo

Question 12

Guilty soul and madness
(visions)

Answer 12

‘a false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain’

Question 13

Guilty soul and madness
(vision of dagger)

Answer 13

‘Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand’

Question 14

Justice of God
(repercussions of sins)

Answer 14

‘It will have blood they say, blood will have blood’

Question 15

Fate vs Free will
(Hecate)

Answer 15

‘He will come to know his destiny soon’

Question 16

Fate vs Free will
(Macbeth conflicts with belief in supernatural prophecy)

Answer 16

“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir”

Question 17

Fate vs Free will
(light vs dark imagery)

Answer 17

‘Let not light see my black and deep desires’

Question 18

Fate vs Free will
(prophecy)

Answer 18

‘None of woman born shall harm macbeth’

Question 19

Kingship vs Tyranny
(Duncan, a loving, nurturing King)

Answer 19

‘I have begun to plant thee and will labour to make thee full of growing’

Question 20

Kingship vs Tyranny
(Scotland suffering under Macbeth’s Tyrannical rule)

Answer 20

‘Our suffering country under a hand accursed’

Question 21

Kingship vs Tyranny
(Malcolm fears the tyrant, Macbeth)

Answer 21

‘To offer up a weak, poor innocent lamb to appease an angry god’

Question 22

Kingship vs Tyranny
(Macbeth’s Tyranny harming Scots)

Answer 22

‘This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues’

Question 23

Importance of Natural Order
(nature being disrupted by Duncan’s murder)

Answer 23

‘Some say, the earth was feverous and did shake’

Question 24

Importance of Natural Order
(Macbeth’s tyrannical rule impacting divine realm)

Answer 24

‘New sorrows strike heaven on the face’

Question 25

Importance of Natural Order (Macbeth's tyrannical rule harming Scotland)

Answer 25

‘It weeps, it bleeds, and each day a new gash is added to her wounds.’

Question 26

Fear (fear of missing heaven)

Answer 26

‘We’d jump the life to come’

Question 27

Fear (idea of murder)

Answer 27

'makes my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature'

Question 28

Supernatural (LM association to supernatural)

Answer 28

‘ come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts’

Question 29

Triumph of good (macduff when he kills macbeth)

Answer 29

'behold, where stands The usurper's cursed head '

Question 30

Kingship (macbeth's arrogance and incompetence as a king)

Answer 30

'Bring me no reports, let them fly all'

Question 31

Paranoia (threats to macbeth's throne after killing duncan)

Answer 31

'We have scorched the snake not killed it"

Question 32

Loss of morality (Macbeth has killed macduff's family)

Answer 32

'My soul is too much charged with the blood of thine already'

Question 33

Nihilism (tragic ending)

Answer 33

Life is but a walking shadow... a tale told by an idiot