Macbeth Themes and Characters

key quotes

• "let me enfolod thee/ and hold thee to my heart" - kind
• "There's no art/ to find the mind's construction in the face" - trusting
• "So clear in his great office" - a good king

Key quotes

• "Wisdom plucks me/ from over-credulous haste" - Malcolm is wise
• "Delight/ no less in truth than life" - Malcolm is honest

Key quote

• "And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull/ of dirtiest cruelty" - cruel
• "look like th'innocent flower, / but be the serpent under't" - cunning
• "she is troubled with thick coming fancies" - disturbed
• "unsex me" - would rather be masculine
• "we'll not fail" - ambitious
• "out damned spot" - going mad, supernatural
• "dash'd the brains out" - violent

Key quote

• "vaulting ambition" - ambitious
• "brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name" - brave
• "will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood/ clean from my hand?" - guilty
• "is this a dagger which I see before me?" - ambitious
• "stars hide your fires let not light see my black and deep desires"
• "o, full of scorpions is my mind"
• "Tyrant"

key quote

• "dauntless temper of his mind" - brave
• "noble Banquo" - noble
• "instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's" - wise
• "you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so"- does not believe in supernatural
• "I fear tho playd'st most foully for't"

Key quote

• "noble passion" - noble
• "I have no words" - a soldier/stunned
• "my voice is my sword" - a soldier
• "I must also feel it as a man" - emotional

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• "instruments of darkness" - evil
• "this supernatural soliciting / cannot be ill, cannot be good" - ambiguous
• "so withered and so wild" - strange
• "fair is foul and foul is fair" - supernatural
  

• motivates Macbeth to commit terrible deeds. it changes him from a "valiant" soldier to a "dead butcher"
• ambition is dangerous as it can quickly spiral you out of control. macbeth considers killing duncan for a long time however he does not hesitate to kill banquo
• ambition can make people ruthless and selfish
• "not without ambition, but without / the illness should attend it" - lady macbeths says this about macbeth, she believes he's not ruthless enough
• macbeths "fatal flaw"
• malcolm and macduff are ambitious to get the country back

• country- Macduff is loyal to his country instead of protecting his family
• king- thanes are loyal as he is a "great" king. malcolm gives duncan "service and loyalty" by fighting for him
• beliefs- banquo is loyal to his own sense of honour, he says he will keep his "allegiance clear". he wont let the witches or ambition affect him
• macbeth is initially loyal "his kinsman and his subject"
• shakespeare juxtaposes lady macbeths plotting to kill duncan with her welcoming him into her castle. this develops her character and makes her murderous intentions more dramatic

• "false face must hide what the false heart doth know"- Macbeth, he needs to be two-faced
• "look like the innocent flower but be the serpent beneath"
• Macbeth believed the witches were on his side when they weren't

• "is this a dagger which I see before me?" - Macbeth hallucinates on his way to kill Duncan
• "Macbeth does murder sleep!" - after killing Duncan, Macbeth fears he will never sleep again from the guilt
• "blood will have blood" - after Banquo's ghost has gone, Macbeth feels that his crime is pursuing him
• "out damned spot! out I say!" - Lady Macbeth hallucinates blood on her hands before her death
• "Amen" - couldn't say amen after he murdered Duncan which shows his guilty conscience

"come you spirits, tend on mortal thoughts"- lady Macbeth is turning into a witch. "come you spirits" - imperative. "mortal thoughts" - assonance

"nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark" - heaven is so powerful that it shouldn't have to peep instead it should be able to sweep the curtain back. this suggests that the deed they're going to commit is so bad that the powers of heaven will be too afraid to pull back the blanket of the dark and look at what they're doing. so there's the idea of here that she can command the supernatural powers to give herself power and status