Quotes from Macbeth

Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here And fill me from the crown to the
toe top-full Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The
effect and it!

Act 1 scene 5- It portrays Lady Macbeth as a powerful and commanding character using the
imperative ‘come’ and it also displays her disregard for the patriarchal society by asking to be
‘unsexed’ which would have shocked a Jacobean audience and it could be seen as
Shakespeare’s attack on gender stereotypes at the time, as it conveys that for a women to
succeed in a Jacobean society they would have to become male and so he supposedly hints at
the flaw in society at the time- where only men are benefitted in Jacobean society. It also shows
shows the masculine characteristics at the time were to be cruel, hence (after she is unsexed) it
may portray that the cruel actions that Lady Macbeth carries out can be an attack on the cruel
nature of men at the time.
Shakespeare shows the character of Macbeth through other noble characters in the play before he is actually displa
audience, which gives the audience a high expectation for Macbeth as a noble character, this is expressed in the sta
Macbeth- well he deserves that name’ as it immediately signals to the audience how he is thought of by noble chara
elevates his character that is inevitably heading for a fall. It also gives the audience reassurance that he is a worth
character which heightens the downfall that Macbeth will experience.
Macbeth shows how he is aware of his ‘vaulting
ambition’
Thou wouldst be great
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it (1.5)
Lady Macbeth shows to the audience that Macbeth’s hamartia is not ambition
rather it is an impulse that he eventually acts on, and by acting on ambition he
inevitably meets his demise, it also could suggest that he is not in control, rather
he has been forced by Lady Macbeth to act on his ambition and so Macbeth’s
hamartia can be seen as the love for his wife.
T o bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come,
come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done
cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. (5.1)
By stating, ‘There is knocking at the gate’- the audience is reminded of Macbeth’s emotions,
after killing Duncan- ‘Hark, more knocking’- it presents Lady Macbeth as feeling immense
guilt and that she has been broken down into a character like Macbeth (directly after he killed
Duncan). The statement, ‘what’s done cannot be undone’, directly relates to her quote after
Duncan’s murder, ‘what’s done is done’- showing that she is continuously reliving the
moment, in her head (a common condition of guilt), and it also adds the phrase ‘cannot be
undone’- which emphasises her desperation for undoing what she has done.