Macbeth: Quotes

10 Generic quotes from Macbeth

I have no spur… but only vaulting ambition which overleaps itself and falls on the other. (5 ideas)

Macbeth soliloquy in 1.7

• He doesn’t have enough ambition, so the witches aren’t enough to convince him to murder Duncan

• He knows his ambition is going to lead to his fall since he doesn’t have spurs to control it

• Spurs need a rider - LM is his rider and controls his ambition

• Soliloquy - alone on stage so it’s honest

• Hamartia could be his love for his wife since we know ambition is not enough

Fair is foul and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air. (8 ideas)

Witches in 1.1

• Describes the weather and hints at their power

• Duality - appearance vs reality: A universe you can’t trust. You can’t read a man’s intentions from his face. Nice people are traitors

• Fate - Duncans’s murder is inevitable. If Macbeth had waited for it to happen, it would be “fair”. But now it is “foul” since he committed regicide

• Opposite of a Greek tragedy - where they try and escape fate. Macbeth rushes towards it

• Fricative sound - repetition of F hints violence of the witches’ desires

• But they speak in trochaic tetrameter - childlike rhymes. This is not sinister

• The witches have sinister supernatural behaviour, but Shakespeare undermines it and says that they don’t have real power and are childlike so are not enough to make Macbeth kill Duncan

• They never tell Macbeth to do evil. He is responsible

Out, damned spot! Out, I say… hell is murky. (5 ideas)

LM sleepwalking in 5.1

• Christain guilt - she realises her soul will go to hell. She allied herself with forces of evil and the supernatural

• Her main argument for committing the murder was that they will get away with it, but now she regrets saying that

• People discovered the murder when Macbeth talks to Banquo’s ghost. They think he is talking to Duncan

• She didn’t realise how vulnerable she would be, and what would happen to her mind

• Her ambition was too great and caused grief

Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here. (6 ideas)

LM soliloquy in 1.5

• According to patriarchy, you have to be a man to succeed

• Being a man, means being cruel. But Shakespeare is saying that kingship and cruelty don’t go together. Macbeth fails because he is a cruel ruler

• In the real story, Banquo helped Macbeth, and he stayed king for a long time. But Shakespeare has manipulated the story to teach James I about cruelty

• In the patriarchal society, women are excluded from power and can only gain it through men. This encourages LM to manipulate Macbeth

• Society is forcing women to act in unfeminine ways in order to achieve power. Witches have beards and are excluded so turn to evil and supernatural to gain power

• LM has recently lost her child, so she is a grieving mother, but also a failed wife since she hasn’t provided an heir. So, she chooses another way to seek power and influence

Lesser than Macbeth and greater / Not so happy, yet much happier / Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. (5 ideas)

Witches, to Banquo, in 1.3

• Flattery of James I since he was thought to be the descendant of Banquo, who was noble, so James I comes from a noble ancestry which is chosen by God

• Divine right of kings - God’s representative on Earth.

• The play is first performed to James I and the nobles. It is a warning to not overthrow the king else you will go against the God’s divine plan so be punished, driven insane, and go to hell. Any plotting against the king will be unsuccessful - just like the gunpowder plot

• Both were given prophecies from the witches. Macbeth acts on his evil thoughts but Banquo doesn’t. He is the antithesis to Macbeth. He is happier, since he didn’t become evil

• Paradoxes remind us of appearance vs reality from the beginning

Something wicked this way comes. (2 ideas)

Witches, about Macbeth, in 4.1

• Macbeth is inherently evil, not witches

• He is easily persuaded by LM, not witches

While it was smiling in my face… dash’d the brains out. (7 ideas)

LM in 1.7

• This quote is intentionally horrific. LM has abandoned all sense of femininity, rejected her patriarchal roles and her duty to provide children

• On a deeper level, we see how the death of her baby has affected her. It has led to an extreme level of violence and revenge killing. The world has killed her baby, so she will kill God’s representative on Earth - the king

• She is a fiend like queen and manipulates her husband by saying how a promise is more important than life or death. She could be inherently evil

• The consonance of Bs and Ds show how aggressive the imagery is and reflects her own aggression. But it also tells Macbeth the aggression he should use to kill Duncan

• Her children have never survived so she has failed as a woman. The audience would have some sympathy for her. Shakespeare exposes the terrible life of women and how there are only few things they can succeed at which suggests society has made her evil

• Shakespeare is asking what sort of a society is that that women are only valued on their appearance, ability to have children, and the person they are married to

• Or LM doesn’t know her place in society and exceeds the role of a women so is rightly punished

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, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (6 ideas)

Macbeth’s monologue in 5.5

• “Out, out” mirrors LM language which shows how they are similarity evil, but also how close they are and how much he loves her

• A “candle” is a Christian image which shows how Macbeth’s love for his wife is more powerful than his love for God. This is against Christianity since he is not choosing God

• He has a nihilistic view that life is pointless which is the exact idea of a tragedy. God or fate have decided what we will do so it doesn’t matter what we choose. We are not in charge

• Or Macbeth has taken his own decisions but refuses to accept responsibility for driving his wife mad with guilt and her committing suicide. He blames God instead

• A Shakespearian audience would see this as ironic since his free will still led him to tragedy

• Dark humour - He actually is an actor performing someone else’s script. The underlying message may be that God has actually written our script, and we are not fully in control

Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it. (5 ideas)

LM, to Macbeth, in 1.5

• This advice comes from Genesis. In the Adam and Eve story, Satan disguised as a serpent, persuades Eve to eat an apple that God forbidden her from eating. It shows how women are easily influenced by the devil

• The witches appear to influence Macbeth, but here Shakespeare hints that it is actually LM. Just like Eve influences Adam after the serpent influences her

• James I favoured this story and believed that women were more evil than men and more open to temptation due to the original sin, which is why LM is worse than Macbeth.

• Shakespeare could be flattering James I and giving him the views and ideas he wants since he is sponsoring the play.

• James I had a medal to commemorate his victory over the gunpowder plot. It has a snake (the plotters) under flowers. By adding this imagery, Shakespeare is ingratiating himself with the king, but also reminding the nobles watching that the gunpowder plot was unsuccessful, so any other plots will also fail

I begin to be aweary of the sun and wish the estate of the world were now undone. (6 ideas)

Macbeth monologue in 5.5

• Macbeth understands he is going to die and that the witches have tricked him.

• His revenge is to wish for the whole world to be destroyed. This nihilism is a childish impulse to want to destroy everything without thinking about the consequences

• Shakespeare tells the nobles that the desire to be king is ultimately a childish desire

• Macbeth rejects the sun which means he rejects God. This means he rejects the whole world. Without faith in God, you are nothing and the world is meaningless

• Shakespeare emphasises the Christian faith so nobles will prioritize it and cannot kill the king. Due to the divine right of kings, regicide will mean you go to hell and there will be punishment on earth and eternal damnation. Macbeth and LM are examples of this

• The extreme nature of this imagery shows how guilty he feels. But he has a childish refusal to take responsibility, so he transposes his emotions and blames other things

Thesis statement (9 ideas)

• Cautionary tale against regicide

• Patriarchal society

• Masculinity

• Ambition and power

• Fate

• Guilt

• Supernatural

• Appearance vs reality

• Violence and tyranny