| ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair’ | Start as you mean to go on. It isn’t as it seems and acts as a warning to the audience. It’s a riddle in which witches would have spoken, it creates fear as they were believed to be real and seems as if they’re casting a spell. |
| ‘In thunder, lightening, or in rain?’ | Pathetic fallacy gives an uneasy feeling and were seen as a bad omen that released evil causing fear instantly and therefore tension. They’re weather’s that no one was two and so have negative connotations again striking fear. |
| ‘ What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won’ | ‘Noble’ highlights his high status and immediate good image. It shows people thought highly of him and that he was a loyal subject and a worthy individual which we discover later to be wrong. |
| ‘Lesser than Macbeth, and greater’ | It’s contradictory and again talking in a simple riddle to confuse the audience. It acts as a hint to the audience of events to come. It too highlights the weakness in Macbeth regarding self control and trying to conceal his curiosity and happiness to the fact of him being king. |
| ‘ Or have we eaten on the insane root/That takes the reason prisoner?’ | Banque questions his sanity after his encounter with the wirches. He can’t process what he’s heard or saw and doesn’t want to believe it which is a clear contrast to Macbeth |
Macbeth Act One Quotes Analysis
September 9, 2019