macbeths bloodlust

“Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chops’

macbeth: personal killing, involved dagger = up close. Shows macbeths is a good warrior, fierce and revels/enjoys killing. Killing on behalf of the king and country. Quote shows Macbeth's weakness, he enjoys what he does.

Did the witches tell macbeth how he would fulfil his prophecies

no, immediately after he finds out he will be thane of cawdor so he begins to believe that his fate/prophecy is true

“Why do i yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair”

wondering why after he had been told being king was in his fate he is thinking of murder

“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.”

if fate will make him king, he won't have to do anything

“This have i thought good to deliver thee (my dearest partner of greatness) what greatness i promis’d thee’

LM will become queen, macbeth understands LM ambition is greater than his own

Why does macbeth send lady macbeth a letter

macbeth arrives after messenger delivers the letter, he wants lady macbeth to think of a plan, macbeth has psychological understanding of LM and uses her knowledge to create a plan to become king/kill duncan, he doesn't have much drive to kill duncan in comparison to LM

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

says she need power of cruelty because macbeth is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way”

“too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way”

LM assessment of macbeth is wrong, her assessment of herself is also going to be wrong

“And you shall put. This nights great business into my dispatch”

tells macbeth to let her plan the murder, ends up pulling out of it bc duncan looks too much like her father

“I have no spur to prick the sides, but only vaulting ambition, which o’er leaps itself and falls on th’ other”

has the intent to kill duncan, metaphor: spurs. Only using ambition to kill duncan will cause him to fail since it's not enough, rider on the ‘spurs will be lady macbeth. LM will help him commit regicide.

“My dearest partner of greatness”

unusual at the time in patriarchal society, women property, macbeth calls LM her equal and partner

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee”

does not mention LM in soliloquy, soliloquy are the innermost thoughts and what he is thinking and feeling at that moment, the first thing he thinks of is the dagger showing he loves violence and killing. As he goes through soliloquy he sees blood on dagger which shows excitement of the blood

What is the main lead to macbeth's failure

the murder of banquo, shows us that his love and obsession for killing is his main cause for downfall

“To know my deed, ‘twere best no know myself. [knocking within] wake duncan with thy knocking! Would thou couldst!”

act of murder confirms to macbeth the things he would rather not know about himself, macbeth now cant have a story where he is the euro in his own life because he gave into his innate desire to kill, he is filled w bloodlust, has a psychopathic reaction to bloodlust

“Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst”

regrets what he has done immediately, now has to admit what he's really like

What did tragedies in the jacobean era contain

hero is noble but has one fatal flaw called their homatia (macbeth)

What is macbeth’s one fatal flaw

his desire to kill

In greek tragedy, what do the hero’s do once they discover their fate

they do everything they can to avoid their fate

What is the different

between macbeth and typical greek tragedies

What is macbeth's hamartia

the fact he doesn't wait for the fate to fulfil itself and take agency, power and control and tries to get their himself, he engineering his own destruction

“Here lay duncan, his silver skin lac’d with his golden blood”

precious metals used to describe duncan as royalty, duncan's blood golden symbolises how important duncan is and what's important to macbeth, taking duncan's blood, obsessed w image of blood

Why doesn't Macbeth let Lady Macbeth plan Banquo's murder?

He wants to protect her (be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck) macbeth's psychological understanding of his wife, if she's involved she’ll feel guilty about it

Why would lady macbeth feel guilt about killing banquo

macbeth doesnt need to kill banquo since he won't become king his children would in the future

“Upon my head they plac’d a fruitless crown, and put a barren sceptre in my gripe”

macbeth won't have children because their children have died, he is acting out of grief and jealousy over the fact he will not have any children to continue the line

“Thou canst not say i did it. Never shake thy gory locks at me”

focused on the blood coming down from banquo's hair, blood catches his attention since he is most fascinated by it

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”

not the witches that are the most evil characters present but macbeth and he is the one who is coming

“The castle of macduff i will surprise seize upon fife, give to the edge o’ the sword his wife, his babes and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line”

because he is unable to kill macduff, his blood lust leads his to kill everyone who is know to macduff instead

“I am in blood stepp’d in so far that, should i wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er”

invented metaphor of river of blood as says that he is half way through and that if he stops half way through he’ll have all the memories of the people he's killed so he might as well cross the river and carry on killing more people

“Returning were as tedious as go o’er”

won't be as tedious and it will be more thrilling and exciting if he carries on killing

“Here's the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of arabia will not sweeten this little hand”

smell of blood won't leave her hand because it's not just duncan's blood but it's also all the blood that macbeth keeps spill, she had encouraged and given macbeth license to start his killing and now he can’t stop, causing her to feel guilty about it

“The thane of fife had a wife, where is she now?”

LM realises that macbeth isn't killing out of ambition but indiscriminately because he enjoys it, may be the reason she no longer sleeps with him, divorced with him metaphorically bc he's not the man she had thought she married

“Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseases, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow”

shows he still cares for his wife to get better bc at this stage he is aware the witches have lied to him and there's no way he can survive because he is a general and can see that too many of his nobles have taken their soldiers and deserted macbeth for the english side and yet he wants his wife to live on, which would be cured through mental state since she would need to live without him bc he will die

“Infected be the air whereon they ride: and damn’d all those that trust them!”

aware the prophecies are lies and that he can't trust the idea of invisibility

“Out out brief candle”

moment he treats her life insignificant like snuffing out a candle flame, can be religious symbol, light on candle used on christian iconography to represent god's light, turned against god by going against the divine chain of being but replaced the light with the worship of his and his wife's relationship, worships her in a real sense, takes care of her or wants to when going into battle which proves his love, when she dies, he loses all interest in his own life, decides to turn against god

“She should have died hereafter”

happy for her to die but not convenient in the moment

“Life’s but 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, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

When you are alive you're just playing the roles of actors on a stage with scripts and fates already written down, god has written them down. God is seen as the idiot in this metaphor that macbeth is having a go at, god created the flaws in him which makes god responsible for his fate, turning against god automatically condemns him to hell, now not taking any responsibilities for his actions and blaming god

What is a neolistic point of view?

Life is pointless bc whether we do good or bad doesn't matter or make a difference bc there is no one to judge us at the end and there is no point to life other than the meaning we give it

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time”

When Macbeth decides it would be easier to die, all future days seem pointless and petty.

What often happened to the hero in roman tragedies

they would kill themselves so they could retain their hero status

“Why should i play the roman fool, and die on mine own sword?”

take idea of classical heroism and rejects the idea of killing himself

“A poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage”

He wants to see how his story will end to see how he will die.

“Thou loosest labour” macbeth - macduff, macbeth says that macduff is wasting his time and strength, suggests he is mid fight and macbeth is winning,

“Lay on, macduff; and damn’d be him that first cries, ‘hold, enough!” macbeth

welcoming of death, knows it will end in death, anxious to die quicker, will die in battle, will die still a warrior

“This dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen”

macbeth enjoyed killing, ambition given to LM, in the view of malcolm, macbeth's hamartia was lady macbeth and his desire to kill