Macbeth Revision Notes: Guilt, Deceit & Betrayal, and Tragic Hero
Question/ Key Points Quotes & Context (AO3) Alternative
Aspect Techniques Interpretations
1. How Does Guilt as a “Methought I Regicide was Macbeth’s
Shakespeare corrosive heard a voice seen as a grave hallucinations
Present Guilt? psychological cry ‘Sleep no sin against show
force more!’” divine order in paranoia/fear
destroying (hallucination) Jacobean rather than true
Macbeth and “Will all great England. remorse.
Lady Macbeth; Neptune’s
reflects ocean wash this
Jacobean beliefs blood clean
about sin and from my hand?”
divine (hyperbole,
punishment. biblical
allusion)
Macbeth’s Guilt invades Sensory
Immediate Macbeth’s imagery and
Guilt mind, rhetorical
disrupting questions
natural peace reveal
(sleep = psychological
innocence). unravelling;
blood =
irreversible
guilt.
Lady Macbeth’s Attempts to “A little water Subverts Repression
Initial dismiss guilt clears us of this gender foreshadows
Suppression of with deed.” expectations, her eventual
Guilt pragmatism (understateme showing her as breakdown.
and control; nt) dominant and
initially “What’s done is resolute.
stronger than done.”
Macbeth. (repetition,
finality)
Lady Macbeth’s Overwhelmed “Out, damned Jacobean ideas Madness seen
Psychological by guilt; spot! Out, I of women’s as divine
Collapse descends into say!” moral punishment for
madness. (fragmented weakness and breaking
speech) emotional natural/social
“All the vulnerability. order.
perfumes of
Arabia will not
sweeten this
little hand.”
(hyperbolic
imagery)
Question/ Key Points Quotes & Context (AO3) Alternative
Aspect Techniques Interpretations
1. How Does Guilt as a “Methought I Regicide was Macbeth’s
Shakespeare corrosive heard a voice seen as a grave hallucinations
Present Guilt? psychological cry ‘Sleep no sin against show
force more!’” divine order in paranoia/fear
destroying (hallucination) Jacobean rather than true
Macbeth and “Will all great England. remorse.
Lady Macbeth; Neptune’s
reflects ocean wash this
Jacobean beliefs blood clean
about sin and from my hand?”
divine (hyperbole,
punishment. biblical
allusion)
Macbeth’s Guilt invades Sensory
Immediate Macbeth’s imagery and
Guilt mind, rhetorical
disrupting questions
natural peace reveal
(sleep = psychological
innocence). unravelling;
blood =
irreversible
guilt.
Lady Macbeth’s Attempts to “A little water Subverts Repression
Initial dismiss guilt clears us of this gender foreshadows
Suppression of with deed.” expectations, her eventual
Guilt pragmatism (understateme showing her as breakdown.
and control; nt) dominant and
initially “What’s done is resolute.
stronger than done.”
Macbeth. (repetition,
finality)
Lady Macbeth’s Overwhelmed “Out, damned Jacobean ideas Madness seen
Psychological by guilt; spot! Out, I of women’s as divine
Collapse descends into say!” moral punishment for
madness. (fragmented weakness and breaking
speech) emotional natural/social
“All the vulnerability. order.
perfumes of
Arabia will not
sweeten this
little hand.”
(hyperbolic
imagery)
