Macbeth notes

“Will all great Neptune’s Ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand”

• A metaphor is used in this quote and Imagery

• The metaphor (Blood), symbolises guilt and haunts him through the play. Macbeth feels like the sea would cleanse his hands but finds in ineffective

• Imagery of Neptune’s oceans shows his guilt is so overwhelming that it feels more bigger and immense than the ocean.

“Full of Scorpions, is my mind, dear wife!”

• Shakespeare uses a metaphor for this quote

• The scorpions represent his metal state, he feels not at peace an full with anxiety. His guilty conscience is attacking and stinging his mind

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

• Metaphor is used

• Shakespeare uses this metaphor to describe his state of mind after the murders he committed. He describes it as river full of blood

“Fair is foul and foul is fair”

• Alliteration is used

• In the quote, the “F” sound from the word “Fair” and “Foul”makes it seem like a chant or casting a spell because of the rhyming, seeming it’s supernatural.

• Also an Oxymoron

• Shakespeare puts these opposite words together to high the witches supernatural power and making the audience think that the right or wrong is being flipped around, telling us that there are many upside downs.

“Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty”

• An imperative is used in this quote

• She commands and demands the spirits to take away her female qualities to become a man. From Jacobean times, woman usually had qualities like kindness, nurturing and caring, but Lady Macbeth rejects these qualities and wants to become more masculine.

“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ’t.”

• Imagery is used

• Shakespeare uses visual imagery depicting an innocent flower contrasting over the “serpent under’ t” Symbolising something evil hidden underneath an innocent face. This could link to the theme of

“Out damned spot, Out I say, will my hand never be clean”

• Shows how guilty Lady Macbeth is