KEY WORDS CHARACTERS TECHNIQUES THEMES USEFUL SPELLINGS SUPER VOCAB Macbeth Lady Macbeth Banquo Fleance Macduff Lady Macduff Donalbain Malcolm King Duncan Witches/Weird Sisters Ross Siward Young Siward Macdonald Blank verse Rhyming couplet Prose Metaphorical symbolism imagery irony soliloquy foreshadowing simile personification metaphor dramatic irony oxymoron suspense climax betrayal ambition treason remorse/ guilt deception loyalty/trust death/ murder morality revenge supernatural heroism respect/ honour power greed friendship relationship Shakespeare Jacobean cyclical structure apparitions prophecies tragedy scene thane Birnam Wood masculinity heir suicide prophecy regicide violence protagonist foreboding macabre ominous nemesis antagonist proleptic irony paradox iambic pentameter equivocation catharsis antithesis ambiguity totalitarian state pathetic fallacy ambiance self- fulfilling prophecies hamartia usurper unconventional
chance may crown me, without my stir’ ACT 1- Lady Macbeth Quotation Technique/Key Word/Symbol/Imagery Possible Analysis Themes Links to other scenes and context ‘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.’ Language associated with the witches (Semantic field of evil/witchcraft) Superlative ‘direst’ ‘Yet I do fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness’ Metaphor ‘milk’ “We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we’ll not fail.” Metaphor “Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out Violent verbs ‘plucked’ and ‘dashed’ ‘‘Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.’ Simile and use of juxtaposition ‘Was the hope drunk, Rhetorical question
Wherein you dress’d yourself?’ ACT 2-Macbeth Quotation Technique/Key Word/Symbol/Imagery Possible Analysis Themes Links to other scenes and context ‘I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters: To you they have show’d some truth.’ ‘I think not of them’ Short sentence ‘I think not of them.’ ‘Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?’ Rhetorical question ‘But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’? I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ Stuck in my throat.’ Repetition of ‘amen’ and biblical references ‘‘Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’ Personification of sleep and repetition ‘What hands are here! Ha! They pluck out mine eyes. Will all Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?’ Hyperbole Rhetorical question
‘There’s daggers in men’s smiles’ Metaphor Juxtaposition ACT 2-Lady Macbeth Quotation Technique/Key Word/Symbol/Imagery Possible Analysis Themes Links to other scenes and context ‘Had he not resembled My father as he slept I had done’t. Irony ‘These deeds must not be thought After these ways; so, it will make us mad.’ Irony ‘My hands are of your colour, but I shame To wear a heart so white.’ Juxtaposition of red and white ‘‘Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers.’ Short imperative sentences ‘A little water clears us of this deed’ Irony Adjective ‘little’ ‘O gentle lady! ‘Tis not Irony
for you to hear what I can speak; The repetition in a woman’s ear Would murder as it fell.’ ACT 3- Macbeth Quotation Technique/Key Word/Symbol/Imagery Possible Analysis Themes Links to other scenes and context ‘I fear thou play’dst most foully for it’ Irony and repetition of word ‘foul’/’foully’ ‘O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife’. Metaphor ‘Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me’ Adjective ‘gory’ ‘Are you a man?’ ‘Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that which may appal the devil’ Rhetorical question Devil imagery ‘It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood’ Repetition of ‘blood’ ‘This is the air drawn dagger, which you said, led you to Duncan’ Reference to ‘air drawn’
ACT 4 Quotation Technique/Key Word/Symbol/Imagery Possible Analysis Themes Links to other scenes and context ‘double, double toil and trouble’ Use of rhyming couplets in witches’ language ‘Something wicked this way comes’ Adjective ‘wicked’ ‘Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down! Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs’ Symbol of crown ‘He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? Oh hell-kite! All? Short sentences Rhetorical questions ‘O nation miserable, with an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter’d Personification of Scotland Macbeth now a ‘tyrant’
‘this fiend of Scotland’ Metaphor ‘fiend’ Devil imagery ACT 5 Quotation Technique/Key Word/Symbol/Imagery Possible Analysis Themes Links to other scenes and context ‘Out, damn spot! Out I say!’ Irony Short broken sentences ‘Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him’ Irony ‘all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’ Hyperbole ‘I’ll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked.’ Violent verbs ‘hacked’ ‘Now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief’ Simile Reference to clothing ‘Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural Repetition of ‘unnatural’