Macbeth Key Quotations and Analysis (OCR GCSE English Literature)

Macbeth Key Quotations and Analysis

For the Macbeth question in your OCR GCSE English Literature exam, it’s always a great idea to learn quotations that relate to themes, or characters. Here are eight top quotes that would work well in a Macbeth essay, arranged by the following themes:

Macbeth Supernatural Quotes
Macbeth Guilt Quotes
Macbeth Loyalty Quotes
Macbeth Fate Quotes

Macbeth Supernatural Quotes

What the quotation means

• Lady Macbeth is calling on evil spirits to help her: specifically, evil spirits that are concerned with death and murder

Analysis

• Lady Macbeth’s lines come from a longer soliloquy:

  • In this speech she continues to ask for the assistance of evil spirits to help her to have the courage to commit regicide

• The use of the imperative verb “come” shows the power that she wields – or thinks she wields – at this early part of the play:

  • Later, Shakespeare shows this to be hubristic: Lady Macbeth isn’t able to maintain this level of power

• Lady Macbeth’s invocation of evil spirits mirrors her husband’s attitude towards the supernatural:

  • Both believe – wrongly – that they can command or control evil spirits

  • In fact, the witches are deceiving both characters and their prophecies are deliberately misleading

  • Ironically, both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth will ultimately face “mortal” consequences of their own for entering into relationships with evil forces

What the quotation means

• This quotation comes in the scene in which the three witches give their first prophecies

• Banquo is sceptical: he suggests that witches never tell the truth

Analysis

• Banquo’s rhetorical question represents a typical Jacobean reaction to the supernatural:

  • He is distrusting and makes the direct link between witches and the Devil, or evil

• In this scene, he is a foil to Macbeth: Banquo’s reaction contrasts dramatically with Macbeth’s:

  • Macbeth is described as “rapt”: he is transfixed, or bewitched by the witches’ prophecies

  • This shows the difference between the two warriors: Banquo is sensible but Macbeth is foolhardy, and his ambition allows him to believe in the witches’ deceptive promises

Macbeth Guilt Quotes

What the quotation means

• Macbeth has just murdered King Duncan and returns to Lady Macbeth

• He suggests it will be impossible to wash off all of King Duncan’s blood from his hand

Analysis

• Blood represents guilt in the play, and here, only moments after committing regicide, Macbeth is overwhelmed with guilt:

  • The hyperbolic rhetorical question highlights how all-encompassing his feelings of guilt are

• Macbeth (and later his wife) will be haunted by images of blood throughout the play:

  • Nowhere more so than when the blood-stained ghost of Banquo appears to Macbeth in Act 3, Scene 4

• It is important that Macbeth mentions his “hand”:

  • This symbolises his personal responsibility for the murder

  • It echoes the lines of the previous scene when the vision of a dagger appeared towards his “hand”, symbolising his desire to commit regicide but there are immediate consequences for this ambition

What the quotation means

• Macbeth is speaking with Lady Macbeth and he describes his mental state to her

• He states that, like a scorpion, his own mind is attacking and poisoning him

Analysis

• This metaphor neatly highlights Macbeth’s deteriorating mental state and the scorpions represent two things:

  • His conscience which is attacking his own mind (he has just ordered the assassination of his friend Banquo and Banquo’s young son)

  • His paranoia which is poisoning his judgment: despite recognising his mental fragility, Macbeth continues to commit violence against innocent people and entrust himself to the witches’ prophecies

• His guilt now foreshadows his vision of Banquo’s ghost in Act 3, Scene 4

Macbeth Loyalty Quotes

What the quotation means

• This quotation is part of a wider soliloquy in which Macbeth consider whether or not to murder King Duncan

• He suggests that as a member of the same tribe, and a subject of the king, he should be loyal

Analysis

• Shakespeare presents Macbeth’s ambivalence in this scene: he knows he should be loyal to his king but is motivated by personal ambition:

  • Duncan has just rewarded him with a new title (“Thane of Cawdor”) and is an honourable man (“his virtues will plead like the angels”)

  • Macbeth seems to understand, even at this point in the play, that regicide will have dire religious consequences (he mentions “damnation” in the same soliloquy)

  • However, he also recognises his own “vaulting ambition” as a motivation for committing the murder

• Later in the same scene, Lady Macbeth easily persuades Macbeth to commit regicide:

  • This suggests that his “vaulting ambition” – rather than external forces – has a significant influence on his actions

What the quotation means

• The morning after Duncan’s murder, the palace wakes up to find him dead

• Donalbain and Malcolm decide to flee the castle (and Scotland) fearing that they may be killed next

• Donalbain suggests that there is a plot or some deception, and that people can’t be trusted

Analysis

• This quotation neatly sums up the Macbeths’ deception:

  • While pretending to be excellent hosts, they were plotting the murder of their visitor, the king

  • This links with Lady Macbeth’s earlier instruction to Macbeth to “look like th’innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”

• The mention of dagger is an example of dramatic irony:

  • The audience is aware that Macbeth used daggers to murder Duncan, but Donalbain is not

  • However, it links Macbeth directly with the act of regicide, and perhaps implies that Malcolm and Donalbain know the culprit

Macbeth Fate Quotes

What the quotation means

• Macbeth has just heard his first three prophecies from the witches, learning that he will one day become king

• At this point in the play, Macbeth is happy for fate to take its course: if he becomes king, it is his destiny, but he won’t force the issue

Analysis

• Although Macbeth is clearly entranced (“rapt”) by the three witches, he is unwilling to admit that he would seize the crown by force – it should happen without his “stir”

• However, this line comes in between many lines where Macbeth is wrestling with his fate:

  • These lines are an aside to the audience so Banquo is unaware of the importance of the prophecies to him 

  • However, Banquo notices the change in his friend  

  • Later, Macbeth acknowledges that his “vaulting ambition” will probably lead him to kill the king

What the quotation means

• Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking in this scene and talking to herself

• She acknowledges that actions have been committed that cannot be undone 

Analysis

• At this point in the play, Lady Macbeth’s mental state has deteriorated:

  • She sees visions of blood, and Shakespeare presents her speech as repetitious, incoherent and in prose (rather than in blank verse)

• However, among her seemingly incoherent ramblings, she acknowledges a few truths:

  • Firstly, she can’t live with her conscience after plotting and facilitating regicide (“will these hands ne’er be clean?”)

  • Secondly, she notes there were innocent victims along the way (“The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?”)

  • Thirdly, she acknowledges her own fate: her actions “cannot be undone” and she perhaps realises that her sins will lead her to an afterlife in hell

Sources

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Edited by Cedric Watts, Wordsworth Classics, 2005