Macbeth Character Quotes

MACBETH

Captain: 'For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name)

• good and brave soldiers
• noble 'Thane of Cawdor'
• personification - 'disdaining fortune' - odds were against him
  

'Will all Neptune's ocean wash this blood / clean from my hand?'

• will never rest - remove the blood
• manipulated into killing the King
• visions and paranoia - a good man turning bad

'Stars, hide your fires! / Let not light see my black and deep desires'

• good and evil
• turning away from goodness
• the sinfulness of his burning ambitions
• struggling with his conscience

MACBETH'S DEVELOPMENT

Macbeth (hearing that Fleance has escaped): 'Then comes my fit again; / I had else been perfect; / Whole as the marble, founded as the rock

• ruining his plan
• corrupted by power
• wishes to secure his power

Malcolm; 'I grant him bloody, / Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, / Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin...'

• committed sins
• Macbeth is hated and feared by everyone
• Scotland became a murderous land of terror

'But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, / Brandish'd by a man that's of a woman born.'

• downfall - over-confidence
• not worried by others
• repeating the words of the apparitions - mocking tone
  

LADY MACBETH

'...unsex me here...'

• wants to be strong and murderous
• calls on evil spirits - doesn't want to be weak and feminine - 11th-century women
• no guilt or Christian morality

'When you durst do it, then you were a man'

• manipulating Macbeth
• emotional blackmail - 'from this time / such I account thy love'
• challenges his masculinity - unusual to the context

'Art thou afeard / To be the same in thine own act and valour. / As thou art in desire?'

• challenging Macbeth's manliness
• shames him into killing the King
• rhetorical question - does not conform to the gender expectations - 11th-century

LADY MACBETH'S DEVELOPMENT

'Why…