Act 1
(Act I, Scene IV) Why does MacBeth want to kill Duncan?
He sees Duncan's son Malcom as a threat to his throne and he wants to be king himself
(Act II, Scene II) Why couldn't Lady Macbeth murder the king herself?
He looks like her father
(Act III, Scene I) After Malcolm and Donalbain leave, MacBeth believes that he'll be next to throne, but who interrupts his plan as they are prophesied to be next to the throne?
Banquo's son Fleance
(Act IV, Scene III) What “medicine” does Malcolm say they should take to cure the “deadly grief” after MacDuff finds out his family is dead?
Revenge
(Act V, Scene I) Lady MacBeth says to the imaginary blood on her hands "Out, damned spot, out, I say!", this is an example of what literary term?
Apostrophe
(Act I, Scene V) What is Lady Macbeth's prayer to the spirits after she learns Duncan is coming?
For the spirits to make her as cruel and ruthless as she can be in order to have Duncan killed
(Act II, Scene II) What does MacBeth convey in this quote to his wife after killing Duncan, "Whence is that knocking?—
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?"
He's paranoid by the knocking at the gates assuming it's a sign of his doom for killing Duncan, he admits to an enormous feeling of guilt and claims not even the biggest ocean could wash the blood from his hands
(Act III, Scene I) How does Macbeth try to persuade the murderers to kill Banquo?
He lies and tells them that Banquo is responsible for pushing them towards an early grave and putting their families in poverty forever
(Act IV, Scene III) Which character says out of rage, "Front to front/ Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself. Within my sword’s length set him; if he ’scape/ Heaven forgive him too"
MacDuff
(Act V, Scene IV) What did Malcom mean about MacBeth's soldiers when he said "'Tis his main hope: For, where there is advantage to be given/ Both more and less have given him the revolt/ And none serve with him but constrainèd things/ Whose hearts are absent too".
His soldiers aren't loyal to him and no one one fights with him except men who are forced to, their hearts aren’t actually in it.
In Act I Scene IV of Macbeth, after Duncan announces his son Malcom is next to the throne, Macbeth says to himself "The prince of Cumberland! That is a step/On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap/For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires/ Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be/Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see". This is an example of what literary term?
Aside
(Act II, Scene II) Why won't Macbeth take the daggers back to the scene of the crime?
He doesn't want to face the fact that he murdered Duncan; he feels immense guilt
(Act III, Scene IV) What does MacBeth see at the banquet that causes him to be upset and paranoid?
Banquo's ghost sitting in the designated seat
(Act IV, Scene II) What does Lady MacDuff mean when she says "For the poor wren/ The most diminutive of birds, will fight/ Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. All is the fear and nothing is the love/ As little is the wisdom, where the flight/ So runs against all reason"?
Even the fragile wren, the smallest of birds, will fight against the owl when it threatens her children in the nest. MacDuff running away has everything to do with fear and a lack of wisdom rather than love; she's calling him a coward for leaving the family.
(Act V, Scene V) After the messenger informs MacBeth that the forest began to move, Macbeth says, “There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. / I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun / And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.” What does this say about him?
He's saying that if what this messenger says is true, it’s no use running away or staying here. He's starting to grow tired of living, and he'd like to see the world turn into hell.
(Act I, Scene V) When Macbeth and Lady MacBeth are talking about Duncan's arrival, Lady Macbeth says "O, never/ Shall sun that morrow see!/ Your face, my thane, is as a book where men/ May read strange matters. To beguile the time/ Look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye/ Your hand, your tongue". What did she mean by this quote?
She's telling MacBeth that he has to hide the anger he feels about Duncan and welcome him with a cheery attitude in order to not raise any suspicion about how he truly feels
(Act II, Scene I) After everyone leaves the room, MacBeth sees a hallucination of a dagger and says "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...". Macbeth announcing his thoughts about the imaginary dagger in front of him is an example of what literary term?
Soliloquy
(Act III, Scene IV) When Macbeth is talking to his wife about the murders, he says "I am in blood/ Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more/ Returning were as tedious as go o'er. Strange things I have in head, that will to hand/ Which must be acted ere they may be scanned". What does he mean by this?
He's saying that he has killed so many people that even if he stopped now, it would be as hard to go back to being good as it is to keep killing people. He's going to continue with some schemes he has in mind before he starts to feel any guilt.
(Act IV, Scene I) The witches claim that "Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until/ Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/ Shall come against him", why is this deemed as irony later in the story?
The woods actually do move to Dunsinane when branches are cut down and used as camouflage by the invading soldiers led by Siward and Duncan's son, Malcolm
(Act V, Scene VIII) What does Macbeth mean when he tells MacDuff "Of all men else I have avoided thee/ But get thee back. My soul is too much charged/ With blood of thine already."
He's saying he doesn't want to fight MacDuff since he had already killed his family
(Act I, Scene VII) What is Lady MacBeth's plan to kill Duncan?
To get Duncan's guards drunk so Macbeth can slip past them and kill the king, he will kill them with the guards' daggers, making it look like they were responsible
(Act II, Scene II) Who was one of the first to be suspected of the murder since they were sleeping in the second chamber next to Duncan's?
Donalbain and Malcolm
(Act III, Scene IV) MacBeth says "I had else been perfect/ Whole as the marble, founded as the rock/ As broad and general as the casing air. But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in/ To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe?", saying that if Fleance was caught as well he would compare himself to being as firm as a rock and as free as the air. This is an example of what literary term?
Simile
(Act IV, Scene III) Why does Malcolm misrepresent himself to Macduff and pretend that he's lustful and greedy?
Malcolm wanted to be sure Macduff wasn't on the side of MacBeth and trying to betray him
(Act 5 Scene VIII) What does MacDuff tell MacBeth during their fight that makes him exempt from the second apparition of the witches?
MacDuff tells him that he was taken from his mothers womb in a C section rather than being born from a woman