GUILT - MACBETH REVISION CARDS
‘Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean
from my hand?’
A01. Immediately after murdering Duncan, Macbeth is
overcome with guilt. A02. He uses hyperbole to expresses the
enormous magnitude of his guilt. The rhetorical question
stresses his extreme paranoia because he fears nothing can
remove the sacrilegious stain - it will stay with him until his
death. He imagines his hands turning the sea red because his
unnatural act has corrupted the natural order. The quantity of
blood suggests he is drowning in his own guilt. Neptune is a
pagan God-reflecting how Macbeth has rejected Christianity.
The classical allusion suggests Macbeth sees himself as god-
like reflecting how far he has overreached himself, and how far
he has gone against god, in striving for the throne.
A03. Shakespeare’s purpose for dramatizing Macbeth’s
extreme revulsion at his actions consolidates the play’s
message about the inescapable nature of guilt and to act as a
warning for anyone considering the idea of regicide.
‘Art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation’
Filled with apprehension on his way to Duncan’s chamber,
Macbeth experiences a hallucination. A02. The metaphor can
be read in three ways. Literally it depicts Macbeth speculating
whether the dagger is real or a symptom of his fear.
Metaphorically, it is a manifestation of his guilt and self-doubt
over what he is about to do. Symbolically, it represents the
inherent danger and capacity for violence within Macbeth’s
own imagination. From this moment on, the daggers in
Macbeth’s imagination will continue to attack him throughout
the rest of the play.
A03. To a Shakespearean audience this would have been seen
as the work of demons, which would suggest that the witches
have made him hallucinate and shown him this dagger to
encourage him to go and murder Duncan. Therefore,
Shakespeare uses the hallucinations to warn his audience of
the ramifications for those who allow themselves to be
indoctrinated by the supernatural.
‘Never shake thy gory locks at me’
A01. At the banquet Macbeth has a public meltdown when he
observes Banquo’s ghost. A02. The imperative undermines
Macbeth’s authority because he is shouting commands at a
ghost only he can see. The adjective “gory” demonstrates how
important this vision is as a manifestation of his guilt – he can
only focus on how Banquo’s looks suggesting he feels great
remorse for murdering his best friend. Alternatively, he may be
fixating on Banquo’s blood because it is the existential threat of
Banquo’s blood line stealing his crown that is the main source
of his fear at this point in the play. The noun ‘locks’ refers to
Banquo’s hair but on a deeper level it connotes how Macbeth
feels locked and tangled by the witches’ prophecies. This vision
also highlights the deterioration between Lady Macbeth and
Macbeth as her annoyance at his public breakdown is stated in
the bluntest terms: “when all is done, you look but on a stool.”
A03. Shakespeare’s purpose here is to reinforce Macbeth’s
unsuitability for kingship by dramatizing how his irrational,
unnatural behavior does not make a natural worthy king.
‘Out damned spot, out I say!’
A01. At this point in the play, guilt over her role in the murder
of Duncan has overwhelmed and consumed Lady Macbeth.
A02. The repetition of the imperative ‘out’ highlights her
desperation to remove the hallucinatory stains of blood that
are contaminating her soul. The adjective ‘damned’ implies she
is experiencing a state akin to hell. The noun ‘spot’ refers to
the imaginary blots of blood but also suggest she feels that she
bears the ineradicable stamp of the devil on her hands. In her
somnambulant state, she speaks in prose rather than verse
which highlights her fragmented and undignified mental state.
A03. Shakespeare’s primary purpose seems to be to show the
inescapable nature of guilt as a warning to anyone who has
ideas about breaking the divine right of kings. From a feminist
perspective, Shakespeare could be seen as reverting to
Jacobean stereotypes about females being the weaker sex by
presenting Lady Macbeth in such a fragile manner in this scene.
‘O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife’
A01. At this point in the play, Macbeth has fulfilled his ambition
to be king but he is still troubled. A02. The hyperbolic
zoomorpic metaphor suggests Macbeth is suffering from
constant mental and physical pain. It is unclear if it’s guilt over
the murders or the fear of Banquo stealing the crown that is
the main contributing factor. Scorpion stings cause paralysis
and numbness. Macbeth is paralysed by his fears and
increasingly numb to emotion. Scorpions are nearly blind
encapsulating how Macbeth has been blinded by his ambition.
Scorpions are not native to Scotland implying he has brought
corruption to the natural order in Scotland. He was compared
to a lion and eagle at the start of the play which encapsulated
his honour and bravery. The fact he is now compared to such a
base animal emphasises his loss of dignity and humanity.
A03. Shakespeare’s message is to highlight the toxic nature of
ambition and the inescapable nature of guilt. His punishment
for disturbing the great chain of being is to be dehumanised
into a base animal.
‘I am in blood stepped in so far, that, should I wade
no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er’
AO1. After seeing Banquo’s bloody ghost, Macbeth reveals that
it would be too difficult to go back to normality so he may as
well continue on his path of destruction.
A02. The metaphor of wading across a river of blood stresses
the violence of his bloody reign. Rivers are often associated
with baptism and rebirth, but Macbeth sees this river of blood
as a sign that he can never be saved from the weight of his sin.
Blood symbolizes his guilt and also his Machiavellian resolve to
preserve his own reign by any means necessary. The adjective
‘tedious’ suggests his bloody deed has caused him to lose his
humanity to the extent that day to day living is now tiresome
to endure. This foreshadows his pessimism in Act 5. A03.
Shakespeare’s purpose here is to highlight the unquenchable
nature of ambition. Shakespeare reveals that unbridled
ambition leads to no good not just for the protagonist but
those around him too. The play teaches us that self-destruction
is unavoidable when a person has ambition with no moral
compass and constraints to check his morality.