Shakespeare, Year 10: ambition, guilt and kingship (Macbeth option)

That his son Malcolm is to be his heir

HintSomeone now stands between Macbeth and the throne.

The whyMalcolm is named Prince of Cumberland. Macbeth calls it “a step / On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap”. He asks for darkness because he already knows what he wants is wrong.

milk

HintA drink linked with babies and gentleness.

The whyShe thinks he has ambition but not the ruthlessness to act on it. So she decides to “pour my spirits in thine ear”.

Macbeth is his host

HintThink of the duty you owe a guest under your roof.

The whyA host “should against his murderer shut the door, / Not bear the knife myself”. Macbeth sets out every reason against the murder and then does it anyway.

Being king is worth nothing to him unless he is secure on the throne

HintHe has what he wanted and still cannot rest.

The whySaid in Act 3 Scene 1, while he waits for the men he has hired to kill Banquo. Power taken by violence has to be kept by violence: the crown brings fear, not satisfaction.

He has killed so much that going back would be as hard as carrying on

HintPicture someone halfway across a river.

The whyHe says it after the banquet. He does not claim more killing is right, only that it is no harder than stopping. This is ambition turned into something he feels trapped in.

dagger

HintA short stabbing weapon.

The whyHe cannot grasp it, and wonders whether it is “a dagger of the mind”. His conscience is showing him the crime before he commits it.

Amen

HintThe word that ends a prayer.

The why“I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ / Stuck in my throat.” (Act 2 Scene 2.) He feels cut off from God at once.

sleep

HintWhat he has just destroyed for himself, and what Duncan was doing when he died.

The whyHe killed a sleeping man, and from now on neither he nor his wife can rest. Lost sleep is one of the play's signs of a guilty mind.

Macbeth, moments afterwards

HintThe speaker is staring at his own hands.

The whyHe answers himself: no, his hand would turn the green sea red. His wife, in the same scene (Act 2 Scene 2), says a little water will do. Their reactions to guilt start far apart.

scorpions

HintSmall creatures with a sting in the tail.

The whyThe image is of being stung from the inside. He has the crown and is tormented, mainly by the thought that Banquo and Fleance are still alive.

Nobody: only Macbeth sees it

HintHis wife has to make excuses to the guests.

The whyThe lords see their king shouting at an empty stool. Whether the ghost is real or made by guilt is left open; either way it comes from what he has done.

Broken out of their stalls and eaten each other

HintTame animals turning savage.

The whyRoss and an Old Man swap reports of unnatural events, including darkness in the daytime. The idea is that killing a king upsets the whole natural order.

Macbeth's murder of King Duncan

HintA lesser creature brings down a greater one.

The whyAn owl normally hunts mice; a falcon is a noble hunting bird. Their swapped places show the proper order turned upside down.

As a gentle and blameless king, whose virtues will plead against his murder

HintHe uses words such as “meek” and “clear”.

The whyDuncan “hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been / So clear in his great office”. Shakespeare makes the victim a good king so that the murder has no excuse.

To test whether Macduff is loyal to Scotland or a spy for Macbeth

HintHe takes it all back as soon as his listener despairs.

The whyThe scene sets out what a good king needs, and shows Malcolm as careful where his father was too trusting.

grave

HintWhere the dead are laid.

The whyA country should nurture its people as a mother does. Under a tyrant it only buries them. The state of the land reflects the kind of king who rules it.