MACBETH Mind Map

MACBETH Mind Map

1. KEY QUOTES

   • GUILT
     • "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I wouldst thou couldst!"
       • "I could not say 'Amen', When they did say 'God bless us'!"
         • "full of scorpions is my mind"
   • SUPERNATURAL
     • "I had most need of blessing"
       • "Thou canst say I did it! Never shake Thy gory locks at me!"
         • "Accursed be the tongue that tells me so"
       • "Avaunt and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!"
         • "I will tomorrow - And betimes i will - to the weird sisters. More shall they speak"
   • RELIGION
   • BRAVERY
     • "Brave Macbeth"
       • "brandished steel which smoked with bloody execution"
         • "Like Valour's minion, carved out his passage"
           • "He inseamed him from the nave to the chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements"
             • "As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion!"
             • Macduff - "Then yield thee, coward "
               • "Damned be him who cries 'Hold, enough!' "
   • FATE
     • "blood will have blood" - Foreshadowing
   • AMBITION
     • "Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!"
       • "Prince of Cumberland! - This is a step on which i must fall down, or else overleap, for in my way it lies"
         • "Stars, hide your fires! Let light not see my black and deep desires!"

2. KEY CHARACTER EVENTS:

   • 1) Act 1, Scene 3: Macbeth and Banquo come across the witches as they return from battle. Macbeth is told he will become Thane or Cawdor and King of Scotland. When he hears that he has become Thane of Cawdor he begins to believe that he could become king too.
   • 2) Act 1, Scene 4: Malcom is named heir to Duncan's throne and Macbeth sees him as an obstacle to his ambitions.
   • 3) Act 1, Scene 7: Macbeth debates about whether he should kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth persuades him the he should
   • 4) Act 2, Scene 1: Macbeth has a vision of a bloody dagger that guides him to Duncan's room
   • 5) Act 2, Scene 2: Macbeth returns from killing Duncan but has forgotten to plant the daggers on the attendants and is too scared to go back
   • 6) Act 2, scene 4: Macbeth is crowned king
   • 7) Act 3, Scene 1: Believing the Banquo suspects him, Macbeth plans to have him and his son killed
   • 8) Act 3, Scene 4: Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost at the banquet and decides to re-visit the witches
   • 9) Act 4, Scene 1: Macbeths visits the Witches and they tell him: he cannot be killed by any man of woman born, he cannot be killed unto Birnam wood marches on Dunsinane and that he must beware of Macduff
   • 10) Act 5, Scene 3: Macbeth hears Malcolm is coming for him. At first he is unphased but upon hearing that Birnam wood is moving towards his castle he decides to go out and fight to the death
   • 11) Act 5, Scene 8: Macduff find Macbeth and tells him he was not born of woman (caesarean). Macbeth agrees to fight to the death and is killed by macduff

3. MY OPINION

   • In my opinion, Macbeth at the start of the play shows great bravery and loyalty to the crown by fighting on Duncan's behalf and killing the traitor, the first Thane of Cawdor. But he is then shown to be very easily manipulated towards actions of treachery himself by female influences such as Lady Macbeth and the witches which strongly contradicts the male stereotype of the Elizabethan age. He continues to show weakness of both the mind and character as he proceeds to hallucinate seeing Banquo's ghost and becoming reliant on the witches prophecies for reassurance. However, this proves to be his downfall. The play does show a cyclical structure in that Macbeth shows bravery in the final scenes of Act 5 as he decides to go out and fight to the death and when mmeting Macduff and realising that he was going to die he chose an 'honorable' instead of surrendering.

4. SHAKESPEARE'S INTENTIONS:

   • I believe that Shakespeare wished to use Macbeth to make and example of the inevitable fate that would befall traitors and those who dabble in the supernatural realm. The first being that by killing the king he would have been making a direct attack against God as, according to the chain of being, God is at the very top of the chain with the monarch just below as they were believed to be God's representative on earth. This explains Shakespeare having unnatural events occurring after Macbeth murders the king. While Macbeth first appears to succeed in his plot to become king, he falls deeper and deeper into his gruesome fate as he must kill more and more people to avoid discovery and maintain his position. The witches of course betray Macbeth as they are the unnatural and untrustworthy evil entity throughout the play whom seemed to have a plan for Macbeth from the very first scene.
     • To appease an Elizabethan audience, Macbeth is killed by our perpetually heroic Macduff, although his actions of betrayal and supernatural reliance would have been enough to shock the audience and make a strong enough statement to maintain their attention throughout. The idea of an attempt to murder the king would have also liked to the recent gunpowder plot to blow up James I in parliament. Therefore to have both traitorous characters in the play see justice through beheading would have pleased the king very much.

5. IDEAS:

   • Some could argue that Macbeth showed the traits of a brutal murderer from the very start. He killed the first Thane of Cawdor with strong violence as he "usneamed him from the nave to the chops". This is only then amplified as he begins to kill people to whom he used to have loyalties such as Duncan and Banquo. The fact that he has a killers mindset is shown even more as he does not require a great deal of persuasion from Lady Macbeth to kill Duncan and resolves to kill Banquo and Macduff's family by himself.