Macbeth Notes

“Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good why do I yield that

suggestion”
- Macbeth is disturbed
-He knows that witches are evil yet he likes what they are telling him. He has already
started to think about killing Duncan, which really scares him
Macbeth likes the idea of becoming King but is not yet willing to commit murder and
the ultimate treason
Suggesting - idea of killing the king
The thought of committing regicide is deeply unsettling for him. He understands that
it would be a terrible crime; in the end, he cannot stop thinking about it
“My thought whose murder Is yet but fantastical”

- Macbeth is concerned, uneasy of murdering Duncan without a worthy enough
reason
- He is hesitant
- ‘But if this is a good thing, why do I find myself thinking about murdering King
Duncan’
This conveys to the quote “Nothing is But what is not”

Signifies that nothings is real except the promises, which seem so out of p-lace and
abnormal. This means ‘What is; what should not be, and what is right is what should
be wrong’
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Without my stir”
- If fate will crown him king then he doesn't need to take matters into his own hands
- “May” suggests that if chance fails he has to step in
“Unsex me here”
- Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to take her womanhood away
(being a female is a weakness)
- Strip her off of feminine qualities (kindness, nurture, gentleness, grace)
- Give her the qualities of a man, as they are considered to be more ruthless killers
“look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't”

- deceit, duplicity (two face)
- disguising the true nature (evil, ruthless, sinful) of Macbeth/Lady Macbeth with
looking innocent
“There’s daggers in men’s smiles”
“We have scorched the snake. not killed it”

- Not all danger was removed (animal imagery/Metaphor)
- When Macbeth hired assassins to kill Banquo, they succeeded but Fleance escaped
- Fleance is the biggest threat to Macbeth
“Terrible dreams that shake us nightly; better be with the dead, Whom we, to gain
our peace, have sent to peace”
- I envy the dead, that do not live with guilt nor shame
“O, full of scorpions in my mind, dear wife!”
- Scorpions = agony, suffering, shame
(animal imagery)
- His sanity is declining
On Tuesday last, A falcon tow'ring in her pride of place Was by a mousing owl
hawked at and killed.'
- ‘Mousing owl’ Macbeth
‘Falcon’ Duncan
Blood = guilt and horror

Macbeth is haunted and is remorseful
“never shake Thy gory locks at me” - Horror

“Thy bones are marrowless; thy blood is cold” - Horror/Guilt
“And keep the ruby of your cheeks, When mine is blanched with fear” - Horror/Guilt
- Betrayal
- Macbeth's guilt and fear is shown to everyone
“Blood will have blood” - Guilt
- Macbeth knows/painfully aware that he will have to suffer for his murders
(revenge retribution)
- 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.
“I am in blood, Stepped in so far” - Guilt
- Macbeth's is responsible of so many acts of violence
The blood is a constant reminder of the direct consequences in Macbeths actions.
“Double double toil and trouble”

- increasing Macbeth's suffering
- Shows how malicious and evil the witches are
1st Apparition - an armed head rises from the cauldron

- Foreshadows war, being that it’s a soldier
- Also Macbeth's fate (Macduff cuts his head)
“Beware Macduff” - A warning for he is a threat
2nd Apparition - a child covered in blood rises from the cauldron

- referring to ‘blood’ Macbeth will use violence
- Represents Macduff; he was ripped off of his mothers womb
“for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”
- Foreshadows that Macduff will defeat Macbeth
- Shows dramatic irony and the witches hypocrisy and betrayal of Macbeth
3rd Apparition - A child crowned, with a tree in his hand rises from the cauldron
- children representing innocence corrupted by war
- Children suffering in the play
“Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill Shall come against him”
- Deception; creating a false sense of security and reassurance for Macbeth
- Foreshadows hat he will die on Dunsinane Hill
While convincing that Macbeth is invincible, the witches actually show him
through the apparitions that he is not invincible and will be defeated.
- But Macbeth doesn’t know that, because he is too confident and self assured
- He is not in the slightest suspicious or doubtful
‘Eight kings pass one by one across the stage ma Macbeth speaks; the last king has a
mirror in his hand; the Ghost of Banquo follows the last king’
- Banquo’s descendants will take the thrown forever and after
- Fate cannot be changed, therefore the witches prophecy of Banquo is proven true
“The very firstling of my heart shall be The firstling of my hand”

- he will begin acting on his impulses by turning his thoughts into actions the second
he thinks of them; instinct
- Then he slaughters Macduff’s family
“Honest man”
- Macbeth is not an honest man
- A tyrant
Irony
- Being a traitor of a deceiving and tyrant man (Macbeth) is acceptable and worthy
Refers to “Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair”
“Where to do harm is often laudable [noble, deserving, justifiable], to do good

sometimes accounted dangerous folly”
- To do harm is good, to do good is harm
“Bleed, bleed poor country!”

“It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds”
- Personification
Scotland is wounded, injured, dying
Malcolm tests Macduff’s loyalty by lying

- Malcolm's vices that he recites to Macduff for him to see if he is as against Macbeth
as him; Lust, Greed, Cruelty
- Macduff rejects and Malcolm is satisfied
- He reassures that he is not not lust filled, but a virgin, not greedy and always tries
to speak the truth
“Alas, poor country!” enclosed in (a):

 Death
 Grave
 Coffin
“O, I could play the woman with mine eyes” - Macduff
Irony
“Out damned spot! Out, I say!”
(“My hand are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white”)
“What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”
“Here’s the the smell of the blood still; All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten
this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
(A little water clears us of this deed”)
- Her sleepwalking is due to guilt and disturbance
- Lady Macbeth is now ridden with so much guilt as the play progressed
- She was first proud of the murderous act; untroubled, prideful
- Shakespeare uses blank verse to prose when writing about Lady Macbeth to show
the disorder in her mind
she was obsessed with trying to wash the blood that she still felt and smelt from her
hands, a huge change from Act 2, Scene 2. She said, “Out, damned stop! out I say!”
and continued with, “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” This is definitely very
ironic, since early in the play Lady Macbeth dismissed Macbeth’s concerns with little
thought, and one would expect her not to ever think of them again. As we can see in
the play though, what was once a trifle to Lady Macbeth soon became a major issue
when the realization of what she had done in Duncan’s murder finally set in.
“I have lived long enough: my way of life, Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf”
- Macbeth has lost his reason for living
- Life is meaningless; withering and falling away like autumn leaves
- Tired of living; has nothing to look forward to in life
Soldiers plans to disguise themselves as branches - fulfilling the prophecy of the

witches
Depressing, pessimistic speech of Macbeth

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. 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,
Sigifying nothing.”
- When receiving the news of Lady Macbeth's death he is nonchalant, indifferent

- Life creeps at a slowing pace, day after day until “the last syllable of recorded time”
- Repetition of tomorrow expresses the growing madness in Macbeth
- “Out, out brief candle” Macbeth's wants to put out his life
- Light only guides fools to their death
- Their acts of violence has become meaningless; All the bloodshed have come to
signify nothing
- Symbolizes the outcome of Macbeth's ambition
- His tone indicates indifference and puzzlement; ‘death’ has no meaning now
- Macbeth’s suffering is intense and becoming unbearable. His victim’s ghost is
haunting him, his guilt is torturing him, his enemies are closing in on him, his wife
has gone mad and now he’s just heard that she’s committed suicide
- ‘Whats the point of anything, when a mans life appears to achieve nothing?’
- A tragedy, a tragedy seen a mile away
What had been Macbeth, the loyal and faithful servant, mutates into Macbeth, the
despised and fearful king; where once had stood a man of fidelity, courage, and
humility now stands a man empty of all virtue but possessed by evil and obsessed by
power. “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour
upon the stage and then is heard no more."

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“Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.

If good why do I yield that

“My thought whose murder Is yet but fantastical”

This conveys to the quote “Nothing is But what is not”

“look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't”

“There’s daggers in men’s smiles”

“We have scorched the snake. not killed it”

Blood = guilt and horror

“never shake Thy gory locks at me” - Horror

The blood is a constant reminder of the direct consequences in Macbeths actions.

“Double double toil and trouble”

1st Apparition - an armed head rises from the cauldron

2nd Apparition - a child covered in blood rises from the cauldron

“The very firstling of my heart shall be The firstling of my hand”

“Where to do harm is often laudable [noble, deserving, justifiable], to do good

“Bleed, bleed poor country!”

Malcolm tests Macduff’s loyalty by lying

“Alas, poor country!” enclosed in (a):

Soldiers plans to disguise themselves as branches - fulfilling the prophecy of the

Depressing, pessimistic speech of Macbeth

- When receiving the news of Lady Macbeth's death he is nonchalant, indifferent

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