Download Macbeth - Lady Macbeth Quotes and Analysis

GCSE English Literature – Macbeth – Lady Macbeth Key Quotes (Act 1 Only)
Quote
AMBITIOUS
(and fears
Macbeth’s
lack of)
“Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is to
full o’th’ milk of human kindness, /
To catch the nearest way”
Feels bound
by Societal
Normal
Constraints
“Come, you spirits / That tend on
mortal thoughts, unsex me here, /
And fill me from the crown to the toe
top-full”
Act 1 Scene 5
Technique / Device
Analysis / Zoom
METAPHOR – to compare milk
(feminine) to human kindness
She is unsure how Macbeths purity and
innocence will interfere with their murder plan.
‘Nearest way’ suggests ambition and determined
to gain the title quickly, and she is impatient?
Emphasises her ambition, and that she is so
driven that she ‘fears’ (Verb) their failure.
IMAGERY / SYMBOLISM of Societal
Beliefs about women (imagery of
purity and innocence surrounds)
SYMBOLISM OF MASCULINITY – she is
trying to break away from her
gender, to become man (what with?)
SEMANTIC FIELD OF IMPERATIVES –
commanding and controlling (unlike)
Act 1 Scene 5
Seeks violent “*Fill me, from the crown to the EVIL IMAGERY – “direst”, “cruelty”,
toe top-full* / Of direst cruelty.
“blood” suggest evil of her.
but feels like
Make thick my blood”
ALLITERATION of T – Emphasises and
she cannot
as she is
MIGHT NOT USE BOTH (ABOVE)
Act 1 Scene 5
Seeks not to “Come to my woman’s breasts,
be women / / and take my milk for gall, you
murd’ring ministers,”
repels
Act 1 Scene 5
expectations
“Come, thick night, / And pall thee in the
dunnest smoke of Hell, / That my keen
knife see not the wound it makes”
Act 1 Scene 5
Women seen as inferior in the
patriarchal system of the times
DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS gone against
by her planning to kill (evil ect.)
THEME of ‘Ambition and Power’
explored – she is very much so
She wants to break away from the
Lose feminine façade, supports determination.
mould of women (views and ideas).
She too calls on evil spirits, like the Witches, and
Believes in ideas of SUPERNATURAL,
could suggest fewer dissimilitude’s between
e.g. Witches, not uncommon of the
them (her being perceived as Witch-like, evil???)
time (who possessed ‘evil’ power)
Crown (noun) forebodes to their task/aim/goal
She feels masculine, is female???
Calls on spirits to take away her blood (feelings
of pity)
highlights how she wants to be so
encompassed by this new ‘cruelty’
Crown (noun) forebodes to their task/aim/goal
SEMANTIC FIELD / IMAGERY of
Women – that she wants to lose to
achieve ‘murdering ability’
ALLITERATION of ‘M’ Sound – Creates
snarling sound appropriate to the
meaning (striking emotional ideas)
Implies inability to commit murder as a female
Supernatural that can remove her body parts?
Gall (noun, POISON) sense of evil, reference to
“M..Ms” refers ‘angels of death’ (she to become)
“Woman’s” (noun) suggests its not hers, that he
identifies adversely to them, should not be hers?
PERSONIFICATION – Knife cannot see
what it is doing, emphasises evil of
actions and her supernatural beliefs
Themes / Context
SUPERNATURAL (Believes that
spirits can take away the good)
SUPERNATURAL – Not uncommon to
share similar beliefs, fits the norms
and still believes in their ‘powers’.
Wants to break away from the
Elizabethan/Jacobean societal
expectation of nurturing a child
Deceitful and
“Look the th’innocent flower, /
Promotes
But be the serpent under’t”
this to
Macbeth (by
Act 1 Scene 5
ambition)
“was the hope drunk / wherein
Has
repugnance you dressed yourself? Halth it
slept since?”
to Macbeth’s
cowardice
Act 1 Scene 7
SYMBOLISM / IMAGERY – Creates
Suggests juxtaposed ideas of who they are, and
visual imagery of flower (and the
that Macbeth need to be that (but also hide it)
positive connotations), and serpent
Suggest for Macbeth to be deceitful (command)
(with the evil/negative connotations) Highlights dual nature that Macbeth has/hides
JUXTAPOSITION – Contrasting ideas
Serpent (noun) created emphasis of evil (etc.),
of juxtaposed people (dual nature)
Temptation and treachery (Equivocation),
METAPHOR – compare his feelings
serpents have link to biblical story of Adam/Eve
METAPHOR – Compares to Macbeth
Asking if he was drunk with the ambition he had
(that he once had it – but now gone)
when he formerly promised her.
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS – keeps
Thinks he was lying/faking, (ie. he got dressed?)
interrogating Macbeth, pressuring Offended and hurt that he lied/changed his mind.
him to follow her plan (intimidating – He can dress off/on this ambition (ALT deceitful)
uncommon for women)
Slept (verb) emphasises his lack of ambition into
PERSONIFIED – Ambition/hope sleep? their plan, and that there one was such strong
“That made you break this
enterprise to me? / When you
durst do it, then you were a
man”
Act 1 Scene 7
Remorseless
brutality
and loyal
(fuelled by
ambition)
“I have given suck, and know / How
JUXTOPOSITION – “Tender”, “love”,
tender tis’ to love the babe that milks
“babe”, “smiling” contrast with
me. / I would, while it was smiling in
violence of “plucked”, “dashed”,
my face, / Have plucked my nipple
“boneless” – dark for reader.
from his boneless gums, / And
IMAGERY – Graphic statement of
dashed the brains out”
violence about herself and the extent
of her ambition/devotion
Act 1 Scene 7
“We shall make our griefs and
clamour roar / Upon his
death?”
Act 1 Scene 7
CONTEXT OF SIMILES – Medal to
commemorate Gunpowder Plot had
same depictions (serpent and
flower), well known to the audience,
foreshadows deception of the plot
GENDER ROLES – She is expected to
be not commanding, but is
THEME of AMBITION - Macbeth
formally had it, she does now too,
and is annoyed he has lost it
CODE OF CHIVALRY – Expected to be
‘protect weak, live by honour/glory
and never refuse challenge’ –
Macbeth refuses and she offended
Enterprise connotes the idea that this is all a
‘business transactions’, and that it desensitise
and inhumane lacking the way she thinks
Suggests that only when he had ambition to kill
the King, he only was ‘a man’ then, not anymore
Disrupts typical idea of what a
Willing to kill her own child to fulfil a promise
mother would thought to be like
(extremely brutal and demonstrates
contradiction between her and husband morality, APEPARANCE VS REALITY – Present
as normal women, however reality
established lack of contiguity between them)
is violent and sadistic concepts)
Defame and make Macbeth seem unmanly
MEN
AND WOMEN – Men expected to
Tender (adjective) emphasises innocence, and
retuned use of ‘milk’ to represent feminine ideas be violent, not women, so difference
She deserts the
Elizabethan/Jacobean societal
expectation of nurturing a child