Annotated Lecture Notes: Part I

Macbeth Characterization:

- Tragic Hero: he has a critical flaw that contributes to his own demise
- At the beginning he has a lot going on for me, well though of by peers
- By the end he is isolated and completely destroyed
- The loss of everything signifies his demand
- He did it all to himself, the architect of his own demise

Quotes:
- And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, 
The instruments of darkness tell us truths, 
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's 
In deepest consequence. 
--Banquo, Act I, scene iii
- If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.
--Macbeth, Act I, scene iii


Murder of Duncan:

- Why does Macbeth start his career by killing Duncan?
- His ambition is driven by the want to become king
- Macbeth doesn’t question appearance of the witches, they are responding to his desires
- Wants to be a king but its fighting w/ the idea of murder and public opinion
- He knows there is going to be a price to pay, he is not in denial or and idiot
Quotes:
- Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee; 
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but 
A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 
I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw. 
--Macbeth, Act II, scene i


Lady Macbeth:

- Keeps the evil fire flaming in Macbeth
- She’s and evil impulse and foul destruction
- No conscious, goes against her role as a woman, wife, and mother
- She animus (masculine) while Macbeth is anima (feminine)
- We can’t blame her for Macbeth he chose his actions
- After their plan of killing Duncan is complete she is consumed with regret
- She falls apart and finally kills herself
- She thought she could distance herself from the guilt of the murders but she wasn’t evil enough for that

Quotes:
- I have given suck, and know 
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: 
I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, 
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn 
As you have done to this. 
--Lady Macbeth, Act I, scene vii
- Screw your courage to the sticking-place.
--Lady Macbeth, Act I, scene vii

- Nought's had, all's spent 
Where our desire is got without content. 
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy 
Than, by destruction, dwell in doubtful joy. 
--Lady Macbeth, Act III, scene ii



Macbeth as King:

- After he killed Duncan he gave up on being good
- He becomes a mass murderer
- He has an evil determination to not let anything or anyone stop him from having power, this is his only heroic quality even if its not admirable
- When he becomes king he is overwhelmed with fear
- Irony: his evil has made him terrified of his own self
- Macbeths and Lady Macbeths relationship falls apart after Duncan’s murder, before planned Duncan’s murder together, after he comes up w/ his own plans

Quotes:
- I have almost forgot the taste of fears; 
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd 
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair 
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir 
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors; 
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts 
Cannot once start me. 
--Macbeth, Act V, scene v
- Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
And then is heard no more. It is a tale 
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
Signifying nothing. 
--Macbeth, Act V, scene v