The Macbeths

The Macbeths

1. Macbeth

   • "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me."
     • Here, Macbeth is content to let fate take it's course, although his attitude changes due to his wife
   • "Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires."
     • Macbeth knows his ambition may overpower his sense of righteousness and feels guilty for it.
   • "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?"
     • After he decides to kill Duncan, he hallucinates out of guilt and fear
   • "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?"
     • After killing Duncan, he feels extremely guilty
   • "I am in blood stepp'd in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er"
     • He has done so many bad things, there is no point in trying to be good again
   • "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."
     • After his wife's death he is confused and morbid. He reflects on life, saying that it is worthless and means nothing. There is no point to it

2. "I will not yield to kiss the ground beneath young Malcom's feet"

   • He faces death with courage, and dies like a warrior

3. Lady Macbeth

   • "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe topfull of direst cruelty,"
     • This brings in the idea of gender. Lady Macbeth claims that because she is a woman, she can't be cruel. However, she demonstrates her cruelty and destroys the idea that men are more wicked than women
   • "When you durst do it, then you were a man. And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man"
     • This brings in the idea of gender again. She claims that Macbeth is not a man if he does not murder Duncan. She emotionally blackmails him, and is the reason Macbeth goes ahead with the murder
   • "I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums and dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this"
     • She claims she would kill her own child to gain more power. It shows how brutal and cruel she really is

4. "Out, dammed spot! Out, I say!"

   • She goes mad because she can't live with the guilt of what they have done. She sleepwalks because of it and sees a spot of blood on her hand. She eventually commits suicide
   • "What's done, is done"
     • Lady Macbeth tells her husband that they can't change what they have done and suggest continuing on with their crimes