"Macbeth": Macbeth Analysis

"Macbeth": Macbeth Analysis

1. "If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me / Without my stir" - Macbeth (1,3)

   • Is chance fate?
     • He is submitting to fate
       • Amounts to the same thing
       • Not good for macbeth
   • Better than murdering the king
   • Does he have a choice?
     • Was he doomed from the very beginning? (fate and free will)
   • No ambition?
     • Not trying to do things himself
       • Not masculine?
         • Ridiculed by Lady Macbeth for thinking like this

2. "The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires: The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done to see." - Macbeth (1,4) (Aside)

   • Guilt
     • Recognizes that he has dark ambition
       • Excessive ambition is unnatural and noticeable
   • Scheming despite knowing it is wrong
     • Would do anything to become king, even if the methods are revolting for him
       • Ambitious?
   • Fear for his own desires being revealed
   • Wants to be king but doesn't like the methods
   • Telling God to make it not apparent that he is going to defy him
   • He fears the methods needed to kill the king
     • Interestingly, the witches never mentioned murder or that anything evil needed to be done
       • Macbeth's thoughts of murder came from him
   • Ambition is dark and evil
     • Telling King James I not to get too ambitious and kill Shakespeare (gunpowder plot)
   • Admits that he has dark ambition
   • At this point, people have become mere obstacles to him

3. "Prithee peace: / I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." - Macbeth (1,7)

   • Committing regicide to appear more masculine?

4. "Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. / Art thou not, fatal vision, senseible / To feeling as to sight? or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? / I see thee yet, in form as palpable / As this which now I draw. / Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; / And such an instrument I was to use." - Macbeth (2,1)

   • No choice? ("Come, let me clutch thee")
   • Dagger a supernatural illusion? (supernatural)
   • Already decided that he is going to kill Duncan
     • Dagger a symptom of Macbeth's fevered mind?
   • If he continues he would walk in front of the dagger
     • Killing Duncan is the same as killing himself (Macbeth will doom himself)
   • Brain oppressed by guilt?
     • Conscience is existant within him
       • Only to a certain extent
   • Suffering from inner conflict
     • Knows he shouldn't but wants to
       • Shows that Macbeth Already wants to kill Duncan regardless of if it is right or wrong

5. "Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been / So clear in his great office, that his virtues / Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against / The deep damnation of his taking-off;" - Macbeth (1,7)

   • Macbeth's reasons for not to kill Duncan
   • Duncan is a kind king but not a good one
     • Duncan is weak
       • Duncan has been too naive
   • Declaring that his acts are not justified by the eyes of heaven
     • Punishable by God

6. "We still have judgement here; that we but teach / Bloody instructions which, being taught, return / To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice" - Macbeth (1,7)

   • Killing the king would mean killing yourself
     • You would become God's enemy

7. "My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man / That function is smother'd in surmise, / and nothing is but what is not." - Macbeth (1,3)

   • Murder was not mentioned
     • Murderous ambition awoken
     • Macbeth already thought of murdering king?
   • Ambition is evil
   • Murder is thought to have been necessary
   • Fate that he murders Duncan?
     • Was the regicide avoidable? (fate and free will)
   • Shows conscience
   • First thought is murder
   • Did the witches exploit this desire knowingly?
   • Excessive ambition

8. "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself / And falls on the other" - Macbeth (1,7)

   • Admitting there is no good reason to kill the king
     • Doing it only for the power
   • Ambition alone is what drives him to commit regicide
     • Ambition is evil
       • Shakespeare is telling King James I to not kill him because he will be no better than the tyrannical Macbeth
   • Ambition is personified
     • Suggesting he has no choice?
       • Destined to muder King Duncan? (fate and free will)
     • It is a constant danger
   • Biting off more than he can chew
     • Foreshadowing the disaster that follows the regicide
     • Can't control his ambition
       • Ambition as a corrupting force
       • Ironic
         • Used ambition to kill his enemies at the beginning of play
           • Ambition seemed to be good until the end
             • Telling King James I that ambition is only good when used for the right reason

9. " For mine own good / All causes shall give way. I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er." - Macbeth (3,4)

   • Showing lack of conscience
     • Doing it for himself
   • Acting for himself brought about his fall faster
     • A greedy, tyrannical king is doomed

10. "If good, why do I yield to that suggestion / Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair / And make my seated heart knock at my ribs / Against the use of nature? Present fears / Are less than horrible imaginings. / My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man / That function is smothered in surmise / And nothing is but what is not." - Macbeth (1,3)

    • Going against God's will
      • "The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself are called gods." - The Trew Law of Free Monarchies by King James I
        • Will be sent straight to hell
        • Meddling with the power of "gods"
    • Scared of a good prophecy?
      • Or hidden ambition revealed
    • Murder was never mentioned by the witches
      • The thought of murder came from him
        • Secret ambition being unveiled
    • Showing conscience
      • Is clearly upsetted by his "imaginings"
        • Later in the play, he has no conscience. Why?
          • Corrupting force of ambition?
          • Subconsciously had evil ambition?
          • Lady Macbeth influenced this change?

11. "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." - Macbeth (1,3)

    • Witches said exact same thing
      • Connection to the witches?
      • Fated to meet the witches?

12. "I am settled and bend up / Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. / Away, and mock the time with fairest show. / False face must hide what the false heart doth know" - Macbeth (1,7)