Macbeth Loyalty and Betrayal Quotes

Macbeth Loyalty and Betrayal Quotes

1. Loyalty

   • 'The service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it pays itself.'
     • This could show that Macbeth wants to be loyal with continuous thoughts of treachery
       • This is Dramatic Irony
     • This could show that Macbeth wants Duncan to think he is still loyal but is thinking about killing him
       • This is further backed up because he says it as soon as he enters
     • Macbeth believes he does owe Duncan, so before he kills him, he has to get rid of this debt
       • He does this by inviting Duncan to his castle
   • 'He was a gentlemen on whom I built an absolute trust'
     • This shows Duncan has trusted someone in the past who has betrayed him
       • As soon as Duncan says this, Macbeth enters
         • This foreshadows Macbeth being Duncan's Hamartia (Downfall)
         • Prolecptic Irony shows Macbeth is going to betray him
       • From Abstract noun 'trust'
     • This could tell us that Duncan expects Macbeth to be a better Thane of Cawdor

2. Betrayal

   • 'Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under't'
     • After the Gunpowder Plot, a medal was made to commemorate the discovery. It pictured a Serpent under some flowers
     • The Abstract noun 'Innocent' could show that this innocence slowly disappears
       • This is shown when Lady Macbeth starts sleepwalking in Act 5 Scene 1
   • 'That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o'er leap, for in my way it lies
     • Shows betrayal because it means Macbeth will have to break the Divine Right of Kings
       • The Divine Right of Kings was heavily believed in at the time
         • The Divine Right of Kings stated that a King or Queen was chosen by God
           • So to break it meant going against God
         • Jacobean audiences would be shocked by this
   • 'Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, Unsex me here'
     • Lady Macbeth is betraying her femininity
       • This would have shocked the Jacobean audience of shakespeare's time
     • The abstract noun 'Mortal' could foreshadow when Macbeth thinks he is immortal in Act 4 Scene 1