Macbeth Downfall Quotes

Question: O valiant cousin, worthy gentleman

Answer: Duncan describes Macbeth early in play

Question: Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself

Answer: Macbeth describes his fatal flaw

Question: Life is but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Answer: Macbeth’s last perspective of life, using a metaphor, shows Macbeth’s final nihilism and uses sensory imagery.

Question: Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t

Answer: Biblical Allusion by Lady Macbeth telling Macbeth how to act

Question: When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man

Answer: Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth by threatening his manliness, Lady Macbeth shows her true status in the household as higher than Macbeth which defies the social norm.

Question: That may I pour my spirits in thine ear And chastise with the valour of my tongue

Answer: Lady Macbeth foreshadows how she will manipulate Macbeth, links to her disease metaphor and link to Hamlet where Hamlet’s father is poisoned via the ear.

Question: Fair is foul and foul is fair

Answer: The witches are using a oxymoron to foreshadow the disruption of nature.

Question: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Answer: The witches talk in rhyme which Shakespeare uses to symbolise insanity or unnatural. Shows how mischievous the witches are and the extent of their power.

Question: All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis! All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

Answer: Witches tell Macbeth his prophesy for the first time, being the catalyst for the entire plot.