Macbeth Character Quotes

Style: Macbeth is introduced through hearsay to set his character up as a brave, violent warrior. Traits which would have been looked upon favorably by a Jacobean audience.

Theme(s): Bravery (valor). Predator versus prey. Violence/blood. Loyalty. Gender roles.

(1:2)

‘Disdaining fortune with his brandish’d steel... Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps...as sparrows, eagles, or the hare the lion’

Style: The imagery of blood and violence runs throughout the play. This line presents the theme of possible guilt and the consequences of regicide. Macbeth had hoped that after he killed Duncan, all consequences would vanish, and no one would suspect him. Now it is the psychological guilt and further paranoia that fuels Macbeth’s ambition to retain the title of King.

Theme(s): Regicide. Blood/violence.

(2:2)

‘Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?’

Style: Soliloquy. This supernatural imagery can be interpreted differently in each production of  Macbeth. Is it the Witches meddling with Macbeth and presenting this image to him? Or is this  Macbeth hallucinating? Is this a vision which is borne from his extreme ambition to become  King? Either way, the dagger points towards Duncan’s chamber. 

Theme(s): Supernatural. Regicide. Appearance versus reality.

(2:1)

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? ...Thou marshall’st me the way I was going.”

Style: Macbeth recalls an old saying that blood shed through violence seeks more blood in  revenge, creating a cycle of bloodshed; he feels trapped in the inevitability of this violence. A  signifier of Macbeth’s downfall. 

Theme(s): Blood/violence. 

(3:5)

‘It will have blood they say. Blood will have blood.’

Style: A contrast to Macbeth’s thoughts earlier in the play, before he murdered King Duncan.  Macbeth weighed up all consequences and even suggested that he had no specific intention to kill Duncan other than his ambition. Now, however, he is acting without thought and his decisions are purely made by what he  desires – to remain King, no matter what. 

Theme(s): Blood/violence. Ambition.

(4:1)

‘From this moment the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of my hand.’

Macbeth’s ambition.

(1:7)

‘I have no spur 
To prick the sides of my intent, but only 
Vaulting ambition,’ 

Style: Macbeth’s spiral into insanity, paranoia and bloodshed is shown here as he states that  he has no time to grieve the death of his wife. A contrast to the beginning of the play when his  wife was his ‘Dearest partner of greatness.’ 

Theme(s): Blood/violence. Ambition.

(5:5)

‘She should have died hereafter’

Style: Soliloquy. Macbeth's description of the nature of life towards the end of the tragedy. He  knows his wife, Lady Macbeth, has committed suicide and is imagining what his future will be  like. Life, to him, is meaningless.  

Theme(s): Ambition (fatal flaw). Blood/violence.

(5:5)

‘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.’