Fate | Is it real? Does it play a defining role in the play |
Loyalty | Macbeth was loyal to his King but was able to betray for his own personal interests. |
The Difference Between Kingship and Tyranny | Duncan was always called the King, but Macbeth was always called the tyrant. Why was this? |
Good versus evil | Macbeth versus the true king of Scotland |
Honesty | Macbeth and his lady lied very much throughout the story, did this lead them down the wrong path? |
Bravery | Is bravery only a trait shown by good people |
Order | When Macbeth disturbed the natural order by killing Duncan he created supernatural phenomena, in our world do we have a natural order and when it’s broken what happens |
Supernatural/ prophecy | Old man: Tis said, they eat each other |
Blood | “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” Represents macbeths wrong doing and guilt |
The Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition | Macbeth was originally an honoured man but when his wife urged him to go forward with his ambition he cast moral principles aside. |
Guilt | Macbeth and lady Macbeth were always guilty after they did anything, |
Fair is foul and foul is fair | Witches, things are not as they seem |
Like valours minion carv’d out his passage till he fac’d the slave who never shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps | Macbeth’s courage/bloodlust |
Yes, as sparrows, Eagles, or the hare, the lion | Macbeths might |
So they redoubled strokes upon the foe | Macbeth’s resilience |
God save the king | Ross’ loyalty |
Go pronounce his present death and with his former title greet macbeth | Duncan trusting Macbeth |
So wither’d and so wild in their attire, they look not like th’inhabitants o’th’ earth | Banquo describing the witches |
Your children shall be kings. You shall be King | Banquo and Macbeth mocking the prophecies |
If chance will have me King, why chance may crown me without my stir | Macbeth thinking he could get the crown without interference |
There’s no art to find the minds construction in the face. He said as a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust | Contradictions |
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter The Prince of Cumberland | Duncan pronouncing malcolm shall be King |
Inverness | Where does Macbeth live |
Yet I do fear thy nature, It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way | Lady Macbeth on Macbeth’s ambition |
come, you spirits unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty | Lady Macbeth wanting to be a man |
Your face, my thane is as a book where men may read strange matters | Lady macbeth on Macbeth’s face |
Look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t | Macbeth’s face is easy to read so he should change it |
Bloody instructions, where being taught, return to plague th’inventor | Macbeth: bloody acts make bloody consequences |
is this a dagger which i see before me? | Macbeth’s dagger |
The bell invites me. Hear it not Duncan, for it is a knell/That summons thee to heaven or to hell | Macbeth’s knoll |
Had he not resembled/My father as he slept, I had done’t. | Lady macbeth’s inability to kill duncan |
Sleep no more: Macbeth does murder sleep | macbeth hearing voices |
My hands are of your colour, but i shame/to wear a heart so white | Lady Macbeth after covering for Macbeth |
(threescore and ten) I have seen/hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night/hath trifled former knowings | Old man about the troubles Macbeth is putting Scotland through |
… | Banquo doubting Macbeth |
To be thus is nothing. but to be safely thus (our fears in Banquo stick deep) | Macbeth’s insecurities |
Banquo was your enemy | Macbeth changing his opinion of Banquo because of his fears |
Sit, worthy friends. My lord is often thus,/ and hath been from his youth | Lady Macbeth covering for Macbeth |
Spiteful wrathful who as others do loves for his own ends | Hecate on macbeths character |
Duncan was pitied of Macbeth; marry he was dead, and the right-valiant banquo walk’d to late | Lennox suspecting Macbeth |
The pious Edward | Lord on Edward King of England to |
What had he done to make him fly the land | Lady Macduff not trusting her husbands judgement |
Like a syllable of dolour | Macduff on Scotland’s fate |
Yet here’s a spot | Lady macbeths delusions |
Menteith, Angus, Lennox Caithness | Macbeths four remaining lords |
Seyton | Macbeths army leader |
Siward | Malcolm’s army leader |
Out, out, brief candle, life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot | Macbeths life is meaningless monologue |
Macbeth themes and quotes
September 6, 2019