AMBITION
Macbeth uses the metaphor of a rider overjumping to show ambition as dangerous and self-destructive.
“I have no spur… but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.”
The witches’ repetition and prophecy tempt Macbeth with the allure of power.
“All hail, Macbeth! hail… that shalt be king hereafter!”
Paradox captures the theme of deception at the heart of the play.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
Macbeth initially leaves kingship to fate, showing tension with free will.
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.”
Macduff’s personification of Confusion shows chaos unleashed by Duncan’s murder.
“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.”
Lady Macbeth uses imperatives and imagery to reject femininity for ruthless ambition.
“Come, you spirits… unsex me here.”
Lady Macbeth personifies ambition as needing “illness,” showing ambition tied to moral corruption.
“Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it.”
Lady Macbeth’s simile links power with deception and danger.
“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.”
Duncan ironically reflects the gap between appearance and reality.
“There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face.”
The prophecy tempts Macbeth but doesn’t force his choices, raising the fate/free will debate.
“All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter!”
Natural imagery turned upside-down reflects cosmic disorder.
“Tis unnatural… A falcon… Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.”
Lady Macbeth equates masculinity with violence, shaming Macbeth.
“When you durst do it, then you were a man.”
Macbeth uses personification and imagery of darkness/light to hide his dangerous ambition.
“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
Macbeth uses metaphor of infertility to lament power without legacy.
“Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown And put a barren sceptre in my gripe.”
The metaphor of flower/serpent shows hidden evil under fair appearances.
“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.”
Macbeth accepts fate with a proverbial tone of inevitability.
“Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”
Paradox shows moral and social order collapsing.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
Macbeth uses hyperbole to praise Lady Macbeth’s masculine strength.
“Bring forth men-children only…”
Lady Macbeth affirms fate with repetition (“thou art”) to spur Macbeth’s ambition.
“Glamis, thou art; and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised.”
Power corrupts Macbeth, seeing Banquo as a threat to his rule.
“Our fears in Banquo Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature Reigns that which would be feared.”
Macbeth’s hallucination/imagery blurs reality and illusion.
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?”
Banquo warns with dramatic irony that fate-like prophecies can mislead.
“The instruments of darkness tell us truths… to betray’s In deepest consequence.”
Macduff’s apostrophe portrays Scotland destroyed by chaos under Macbeth.
“Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny…”
Malcolm reduces masculinity to vengeance, showing narrow gender roles.
“Dispute it like a man.”
Macbeth shows ambition as endless, where even kingship feels worthless without security.
“To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.”
The witches’ animal imagery encourages reckless confidence in power.
“Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care Who chafes, who frets…”
The witches’ prophecy uses equivocation (ambiguous language) to deceive Macbeth into false confidence.
“None of woman born Shall harm Macbeth.”
An apparition steers Macbeth’s free will by planting fear, showing prophecy’s manipulative power.
“Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff.”
Macbeth’s repetition and nihilistic tone (life is meaningless) show life collapsing into meaningless chaos.
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”
Macduff challenges stereotypes, balancing strength with emotional vulnerability.
“But I must also feel it as a man.”