Characters
This character delivers the news of Lady Macbeth's death with the famous line "The queen, my lord, is dead."
Who is Seyton?
Lady Macbeth's inability to wash away "all the perfumes of Arabia" represents this theme about the permanence of moral corruption.
What is the indelibility of guilt (or the impossibility of redemption)?
In Act 4, the witches show Macbeth this specific vision that confirms Banquo's descendants will be kings: a line of eight kings with this final figure holding a mirror.
Who is Banquo's ghost (appearing at the end of the procession)?
The repeated imperative "Come" in Lady Macbeth's soliloquy ("Come, you spirits"; "Come, thick night") exemplifies this rhetorical device of repeated sentence beginnings.
What is anaphora?
This is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise, making the sun rise in the west.
What is Venus?
This character's final words are "Hail, King of Scotland!" as he presents Macbeth's severed head in the final scene
Who is Macduff?
The motif of children and barrenness throughout the play explores anxieties about this concept central to monarchy.
What is succession (or legacy/dynasty)?
This is the specific military tactic Malcolm's forces employ using branches from Birnam Wood, fulfilling the prophecy literally yet unexpectedly.
What is camouflage (or using boughs/branches as cover to hide their numbers)?
Macbeth's aside "Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires" employs this device where darkness and light represent opposing moral forces.
What is antithesis (or binary opposition)?
This animal's fingerprints are so similar to humans' that they have actually been confused at crime scenes.
What is a koala?
Lady Macbeth invokes these spirits in Act 1 to "unsex me here" and "take my milk for gall."
What are murdering ministers (or spirits of evil)?
Macbeth's description of life as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" reflects this existential theme.
What is nihilism (or the meaninglessness of existence)?
Before murdering Duncan, Macbeth experiences this sensory hallucination that leads him toward the chamber with a "handle toward my hand."
What is the vision of the bloody dagger (or air-drawn dagger)?
The phrase "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well" uses this device where abstract concepts are given human characteristics.
What is personification?
Macbeth's journey from heroic general to tyrannical murderer follows this Aristotelian concept of the protagonist's fatal character flaw leading to downfall.
What is hamartia?
This son of Duncan flees to Ireland after his father's murder, making him briefly suspect, though he appears only briefly in the play
Who is Donalbain?
The play's presentation of equivocation, particularly through the witches' ambiguous prophecies, explores this theme about the instability of meaning itself
What is the unreliability of language (or linguistic deception/semantic ambiguity)?
In Act 3, Scene 6, this lord expresses suspicion of Macbeth and reveals that Macduff has gone to England, making him dangerous to the tyrant.
Who is Lennox?
The witches' paradox "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" establishes this structural technique where contradictions and inversions pervade the play's logic.
What is chiasmus (or paradox/oxymoron)?
The Titanic is the notorious sinking ship, however not many people know its true length.
What is 269 meters long?
The Third Murderer who appears unexpectedly at Banquo's assassination has been theorized by scholars to be this character in disguise, though never confirmed.
Answer: Who is Macbeth (himself)?
The disruption of gender roles—Lady Macbeth's masculinization and Macbeth's questioning of manhood—interrogates this Renaissance concept linking gender to violence and power.
What is the social construction of masculinity (or gender performativity)?
The Porter's speech about equivocators who "could swear in both the scales against either scale" is widely believed to reference this historical event from 1605.
What is the Gunpowder Plot (or the trial of the Jesuit Henry Garnet)?
Macbeth's soliloquy "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" employs both this device of extended comparison (life as a walking shadow, a poor player) and this technique of repetition that creates a sense of monotony.
What is extended metaphor and epistrophe (or what are extended metaphor and anaphora)?
This is the fear of long words, and ironically, the word itself has 36 letters.
What is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?