Macbeth Quiz

Paradox

A statement that seems contradictory on the surface but reveals a deeper truth

Equivocation

Using ambiguous or double-meaning language to conceal the truth or mislead

Implied Stage Direction

Dialogue that indicates an actor’s physical action or reaction without formal stage brackets

Comic relief

A humorous scene or character inserted to relieve emotional tensions after a tragic event

Great Chain of Being

The belief in a strict diving hierarchy (God > Angels > Kings > Nobles > Commoners > Animals)

Aside

Spoken to audience/self, Unheard by others

Soliloquy

Character ALONE ON STAGE expressing own thoughts

Defiant

Openly resistant, bold, ready to challenge, or fight (describes Macbeth fighting Macduff at the end)

Resigned

Accepting an unpleasant or inevitable fate without further resistance

Hysterical

Expressing wild, uncontrolled emotion or extreme agitation

Solemn

Deeply serious formal, dignified, or sincere

Regicide

The deliberate killing of a king

Issue

Offspring, children, or direct descendants, (ex “For Banquo’s ___ have I filed my mind”.

Avaricious

Exceptionally greedy for money or wealth (used by Malcom when testing Macduff)

Voluptuousness

Excessive indulgence in luxury, sensual, or physical pleasures (lust)

Intemperance

Lack of self-restraint or moderation in passion, desire, or behavior

Hoodwink

To deceive, trick, or blind someone to the truth

King Duncan

“No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive / Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death, / And with his former title greed Macbeth.”

Lady Macbeth

“We fail? / But screw your courage to the sticking place / And we’ll not fail.”

Porter

“Who’s there, i’th’name of Beelzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’ expectation of plenty.”

Banquo

“Thou hast it now-King Cawdor, Glamis, all / as the Weird Women promised, and I fear / Thou playd’st most fully for ‘t.”

Gentlewoman

“It is accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this a quarter of an hour”

Witches

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair / Hover though the fog and filthy air.”

Lady Macbeth

“Come you spirits / that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / of diorest cruelty.”

Macbeth

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?”

Donalbain

“There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the near in blood, / The nearer bloody.”

Macbeth

“Oh full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife”

Witches

“Double, Double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

Macduff

“Macduf was from his mothers womb / untimely ripped”

Lady Macbeth

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!- One: two: why, then ‘tis time to do ‘t.”

Malcom

“My thanks and kinsmen, / Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland / In such an honour named.”

Macduff

'“What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / at one fell swoop?”