Macbeth: Style

Macbeth: Style

1. Imagery

   • Blood
     • 'I am in blood / Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er', Macbeth, 3.4
   • Animals
     • 'A falcon tow'ring in her pride of place / Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.' Old man, 2.4
   • Sleep
     • 'Macbeth does murder sleep', Macbeth, 2.2
   • Night
     • 'Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell' Lady Macbeth, 1.5

2. Tragic Form

   • Tragic hero
     • 'Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff' Macbeth, 5.8
   • Hamartia
     • 'I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on th’ other—' Macbeth, 1.7
   • Foil
     • 'still keep My bosom franchised and allegiance clear' Banquo, 2.1

3. Verse

   • 'The bell invites me. / Hear it not, Duncan – for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell' Macbeth, 2.1

4. Prose

   • 'Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.' Lady Macbeth, 5.1

5. Soliloquy

   • 'If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly.' Macbeth, 1.7

6. Dramatic irony

   • The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, Which still we thank as love. Ducan, 1.6

7. Figurative language

   • Metaphor
     • 'O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!' Macbeth, 3.2
     • 'To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb T' appease an angry god.' Malcolm, 4.3
   • Simile
     • 'Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters.' Lady Macbeth, 1.5

8. Equivocation

   • 'False face must hide what the false heart doth know.' Macbeth, 1.7
   • '...none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth' The armed head, 4.1

9. Foreshadowing

   • 'No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive Our bosom interest.' Duncan, 1.2