Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Macbeth (Themes (Ambition (Quote: "I have no spur / To prick the side…

- - - - Analysis: Here, Shakespeare uses line structure to emphasise his point about the Macbeth's "Vaulting ambition" - ironically voiced by the tragic hero Macbeth whose tragic flaw is the aforementioned vaulting ambition. Here, the line structure creates a vaulting sensation with all of the enjambments (Shakespeare is saying how vaulting ambition will end up being the demise of the perpetrator).
    - - Analysis: The fear of light is a theme that is commonly associated with ambition throughout the play - another of the great poet's attempts to warn against getting too ambitious for your station in life. By asking for the stars to "hide [their] fires", he is basically asking for the heavens to not look on - into his mind - lest his "dark and deep desires" be seen and withhold him from heaven (a place the holy, angelic Duncan will go to anyway).
  - - - Analysis: This is a quote from the point right after Fleance has escaped Macbeth's second traitorous attempt at murder - having said he feels "cabined, cribbed, confined". This shows an idea about fate expressed at many other points through the play - that it is fixed, and nothing that you do can change it. The poisoned chalice may also be a reference to the "innocent flower ... serpent under't" line spoken by Lady Macbeth right before the murder of King Duncan (Macbeth knows that this was the point from which all of the other murders and bad deeds stemmed from - he is after all the most self-aware of any of Shakespeare's tragic heroes).
    - - Analysis: This quote comes from Banquo and shows that he believes that the future is predetermined - that it is set which grains will grow and which won't. This emphasises the futility of Macbeth's attempts to remain in power by dealing with the "equivocating fiends" who speak in "half-truths", a prime characteristic of Shakespeare's tragic heroes - they are aware of the futility of their actions, but continue anyway.
  - - - Analysis: The strangeness of this quote - taken from an old man speaking to Rosse just after the murder of King Duncan - symbolises Macbeth's rise to power, inferring that it is unnatural. Duncan's horses, "minions of their race", also started acting strangely - eventually eating each-other right before Rosse's eyes.
    - - Analysis: This is Banquo saying that his nightmares are unnatural, which insinuates that the witches who are the cause of the nightmares must - themselves be evil / unnatural. He is asking the "merciful powers" (God / Jesus / holy trinity) to save him from the unnatural events of the past few days; making stark the contrast between Macbeth's actions and holiness / the natural order of things. This quote also shows that Macbeth has here triumphed over nature by succeeding to seize the crown.
  - - - Analysis: Here Macbeth is saying that the murder would make him less of a man, not more of one. This makes him seem even more cowardly when he - rather easily - caves to Lady Macbeth's pressuring. It also serves to make her seem more evil and sly.
  - - - Analysis: This is another quote from Macbeth's final soliloquy which shows the inevitability of the consequences of the Macbeth's actions through the monotony of the phrasing.
    - - Analysis: The river metaphor for time makes it - and the consequences it carries with it - seem unstoppable. Also, this is said in the context that Macbeth knows that if they kill Duncan, they will "skip the life to come" (that is to say, go to hell).
  - - - Analysis: This is a quote from the point right after Fleance has escaped Macbeth's second traitorous attempt at murder - having said he feels "cabinned, cribbed, confined". This supports the foreshadowing of the inevitability of justice created earlier in the play with Macbeth's line "bank and shoal of time".
    - - Analysis: Here Macbeth is musing as to the best possible outcome of the murder of the king. He uses euphemism which shows that he probably won't be able to handle the guilt and the consequences - which he indeed can't.
  - - - Analysis: This quote is from Macbeth right after Duncan has named his son Prince of Cumberland, and Macbeth has instantly started thinking of murder. However, he still has his reservations as he doesn't want anyone - even the stars - so see his thoughts. This is also a foreshadowing of the Macbeths' later paranoia.
  - - - Analysis: This is Lady Macbeth being her usual evil and nasty self. The possessive pronoun "my" is showing strength, while the raven represents evil omens / death.
    - - Analysis: This is Lady Macbeth again, just after Duncan's murder. Here the owl symbolises her paranoia - which already is starting to manifest itself in the half lines and exclamations in this quote. The adjective "fatal" used to describe the owl - and thus her paranoia - foreshadows her suicide later in the play.
  - - - Analysis: This is a quote from one of the witches, and the nature imagery symbolises not only their strength but also their inherent destructiveness. The imagery is also dark so makes them seem even more evil and cruel.
  - - - Analysis: This is a quotation taken from the first instance of Lady Macbeth's outright manipulation of her husband; she is talking about the hope he had for killing Duncan. Here, she is inferring that if he was to go back on his proclamations, that he would be seen as ill and "pale" and sickly in her eyes. She goes on to say that she would henceforth think the same of his love for her, and see him as less of a man. A lack of manliness is often associated with illness or sickness - especially in the male characters in the play.
    - - Analysis: Here Macbeth is reliving what he heard shortly after the murder of King Duncan. He says that sleep is the "Balm of hurt minds" - foreshadowing his and Lady Macbeth's mental illness later in the play due to lack of sleep. He also says that sleep is the "death of each day's life" which links sleep to death - much like many other points in a lot Shakespeare's plays - making the moment even more dark and sinister.
  - - - Analysis: Macbeth in his final soliloquy - here he has resigned himself to his fate. The adjective "brief" underlines just how fleeting his reign was - the candle being the metaphor. The repetition of "Out" shows the finality of this situation. Light going out also symbolises death as the torch that Banquo drops goes out when he dies
    - - Analysis: The act that the light comforts her shows that the murder affected her more than she admits to Macbeth, reducing her strength in the eyes of the audience.
  - - - Analysis: Here we have a quote from Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene. This is a symbolic use of blood - symbolising her guilt at the atrocious act that she orchestrated. She is basically the catalyst for the whole play - this plays heavily on her mind in this scene.
    - - Analysis: This is both literal and symbolic. Literal as the blood itself can be washed off with relative ease, but also symbolic as the guilt - which is represented with blood and blood-stained hands - cannot be so easily washed away as with a little water. This links to Macbeth's "I am in blood stepped in so far" soliloquy later on.
- - - - Analysis: We actually start of admiring Macbeth through other characters' "golden opinions"
    - - Analysis: This is the last time we see Macbeth having true reservations about killing someone
    - - Analysis: Here Shakespeare is saying that if you don't have cause for your ambition, it will be your downfall
  - - - Analysis: Lady Macbeth believes that if she is unsexed - made more masculine - then she will be able to commit these atrocities with a clear conscience
    - - Analysis: Almost like a children's rhyme - shows her troubled mind
    - - Analysis: All about deception, how you can better strike if you are not expected to
  - - - Analysis: Malcolm knows that to be a man you must still have emotions, but also know when to feel them and when to not.
    - - Analysis: Same as the above really
  - - - Analysis: Banquo sacrifices himself for his son, showing how good and noble he is in comparison to Macbeth
    - - Analysis: Banquo always had reservations as to the witches intentions, and now believes that their equivocations have cost Macbeth his sanity and conscience
  - - - Analysis: Macduff wants to go and avenge his poor country, to rid it of the tyrant who holds sway there
    - - Analysis: By refusing to support Malcolm when he pronounces himself to be all manner of evil things, Macduff earns Malcolm's trust and our respect
  - - - Analysis: Likening Duncan to angels makes the crime that Macbeth goes on to commit even more heinous
    - - Analysis: Here we have a perfect example of dramatic irony - we know that Macbeth will go on to kill Duncan, and Macbeth's wife has told him this exact thing, that you cannot tell the thoughts under a face that looks like "th'innocent flower"
  - - - Analysis: This is about as accurate a description of the witches we will find, they are fiendish in their cruelty while manipulating mortals, and they equivocate - tell the truth but not the whole truth
    - - Analysis: This premonition-like phrase makes the witches seem omniscient and all-powerful, even if they answer to their companions. This perhaps makes us fear for, and even pity, Macbeth