Author: Brianna

Symbolism is used in Macbeth to emphasize the corruption of power. Blood represents guilt, murder and pain. The image of blood plays an important role in showing the corruption of power and ambition and the effects it has on Macbeth.

Act 2 Scene 1
“Is this a dagger, which I see before me, or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation, preceding from the heat-oppressed brain… and on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood.. it is the bloody business which informs”
= Macbeth is hallucinating a bloody dagger that is telling him to kill Duncan. The murder he will commit is foreshadowed by the bloody dagger.

Act 2 Scene 2
“Will all Great Neptune’s oceans wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather/ The multitudinous seas incarnadine/ Making the green one red”
= Macbeth shows his fear that the bloodshed caused by him will never wash off his hands and therefore his conscience. His overwhelming guiltmakes him believe his hands will stain the oceans red. This shows the consequences he faces as a result of his ambition

Act 3 Scene 4
“I am in blood, Stepp’d so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
= Blood symbolises a river here, showing that Macbeth is too far through the river of blood to turn back now, it is easier to keep going.

Act 3 Scene 4
“It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood”
=He will have to suffer the consequences for the blood he shed, and violence breeds violence.

Oh full of scorpions is my mind 

Out out brief candle,Life is but walking shadow , a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.

“And with thy bloody and invisible hand / Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond / Which keeps me pale!”
=Blood symbolises the guilt Macbeth feels towards his murders, and the invisblehand represents him having to hide his evilness.

“Thou canst not say I did it: never shake / Thy gory locks at me”

Fair is foul, and foul is fair

Stars hide your fires, let not light see my dark and deep desires

My hand is of your color, but I would be ashamed to wear a heart so pale

I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent , only vaulting ambition that o’erleaps itself and lands in the other side.

Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow creeps i  this pettypace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time.

A told told by an idiot , full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand

• Conflict, both internal and external, in Macbeth helps us to understand the main messages of the play.
  Symbolism is used to show the internal and external conflict, often depicted as the image of blood. For example, in the quote “Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”  we see how the symbol of blood on Macbeths hands shows the internal conflict that he struggles with, believing all the oceans will never wash the blood off and it will stain his conscience forever. This internal conflict shows the message of the play, that ambition can corrupt.  Macbeth battles with his internal demons and we see through the symbol of blood again, that he has committed too much evil to go back,“I am in blood, Stepp’d so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er”.  Shakespeare uses this line of symbolism to invoke the image of a river of blood, that Macbeth is too far through to turn back to the other side of the river.
  
  
  
  
  1. “I am in blood, Stepp’d so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er”
  2.“Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”
  3..“Out damned spot! Out!”
  4. “Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. “
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• The first meeting between Macbeth and the witches in Macbeth set all the events in motion that lead to Macbeth’s final despair
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• Shakespeare used symbolism to engage my emotions of pity, disgust and despair in Macbeth to demonstrzte the idea of corrupting effect of power 

How does Shelley convey Ozymandias’ hubris in the poem?

In the poem Ozymandias written by Percy Shelley, Shelley conveys Ozymandias the “King of Kings” as hubris, meaning the act of excessive pride or arrogance through the choice of language that Ozymandias describes himself.
In the poem, the statue of Ozymandias is described as having “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” implying there is no head. It then goes on to say “ near them, on the sand Half sunk, a shattered visage lies”.
The word visage means a person’s face, so we get the image that this mighty statue has its head broken off and lays shattered and uncared for, not what would be expected of such a highly praised “King of Kings”.
On the pedestal on Ozymandias’ statue the words “ King of Kings” and “look on my works ye mighty and despair “ are written, implying that this man, for that is all he is, was arrogant enough to announce himself the King of all Kings, and warn others to fear his works.
Ozymandias has a figment of himself that is only true in his imagination and is ironic when paired with the sight of the mighty statue he had built, that is broken and forgotten in a desert surrounded by nothing but “lone and level sands”.
Ozymandias’ hubris is shown through the choice of language to show that …………??

Volta – a turning point in a poem that signifies a dramatic change in emotion/thought.

“Describe at least one idea that changed your perspective in the film”  

“We are more than our genetics”

In the film ‘Gattaca’ by Andrew Niccol the idea that your genetics define what your life will hold is prominent and in this futuristic dystopia, genetic selection rules society to a point where you are more socially elite if you are a “valid”. Right from birth, your genetics are chosen and your identity is your genetic makeup, a sequence of letters that predict your life. Using this idea, Andrew Niccol creates a character that right from the time of conception,  is battling against his own genes to achieve his dreams for the future. The idea that we are nothing more than what our genetics tell us, is forced upon Vincent, who is an invalid and disadvantaged in the society run by eugenics. He has to hide behind Jerome, a genetically engineered humans DNA to achieve his dreams. Niccol uses symbolism in the form of a helix spiral staircase that is at the core of their modernist apartment to show how Vincent and Jerome’s lives are built around DNA but more notably, that we are more than our genes. 

he idea that we are more than our genetics is found nowhere more clearly than in the scene when Jerome climbs up the Helix staircase in order to maintain Vincent’s dream to get to Titan.

Scene starts at 1:19:15

Show how Shakespeare uses language techniques to convey the degeneration of Macbeth’s mental state and how this links to the universal meaning of the play that power corrupts

Key Idea:  ambition causes mental deterioration  & destruction to humans. Power Corrupts humans 

In the famous tragedy Macbeth, we see how Shakespeare manipulates language and dramatic conventions to show the audience Macbeth’s mental deterioration over the course of his reign as King because of his desire for power and security.  One technique commonly used by Shakespeare is the use of Dramatic Irony ( metaphor?).  When Macbeth sees an imaginary dagger floating in the air and reaching towards his hand,  he takes it as a sign that the murder he is about to commit is the right thing to do. Dramatic Irony is used to show the audience how Macbeth’s mind is imagining things that aren’t truly there.

Floating dagger: Act 2 Scene 1

Seeing Banquo’s ghost:  Act 3 Scene 4

Scene 1:

Characters: Lady Macbeth, Doctor, Gentlewoman

Location: A room in Dunsinane

Events:  A doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking that has begun after Macbeth left to go to war.  Lady Macbeth enters, in a trance. She holds a candle and her eyes are open but do now see. She rubs her hands as if washing them of blood and says ‘ Yet here’s a spot, out damned spot”.  She seems to be reliving the night that Duncan was murdered, and she washes her hands of his blood. She cannot get the stain or smell of blood gone. Lady Macbeth exits and the doctor and woman agree to not speak of what they have heard or seen. She talks to imaginary ‘Macbeth’ and says that he should not look frightened because Banquo is dead and cannot leave is grave. This information that Lady Macbeth has spilled is very incriminating towards her and Macbeth, it basically tells the doctor that they killed Banquo.

Important Quotes:

Lady Macbeth- Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

“The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands ne’er be clean?—No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting”

“Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Don’t look so frightened. I tell you again, Banquo is buried. He cannot come out of his grave.”

This act of Lady Macbeth desperately trying to wash off Duncan’s blood in her sleep is similar to Macbeth’s actions after he killed Duncan. He thought the whole sea couldn’t wash off the blood.  The two have both had a moment where they realize their actions can never be undone/forgiven. Their sins will stay with them forever and stain their hands. 

Scene 2: 

Characters: Menteith, Angus, Caithness, Lenox

Location: Country near Dunsinane

Events:  The 4 thanes march to Birnam wood with their soldiers to meet Malcolm who is leading the English army toward Scotland to fight Macbeth and take the throne back. They speak of rumors are Macbeth is mad and his army is fighting in fear, not in loyalty to him, I think because his mental state is worsening, he’s making rash reckless decisions. The thanes decide to purge Scotland of Macbeth’s sickness like he is a disease.

Important Quotes: 

Angus- ” Now does he feel, His secret murders sticking on his hands; Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach: Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love: now does he feel his title, Hang loose about him, like a giants robe upon a dwarfish body”

To me, this quote means that Macbeth is feeling the heaviness of his murders and his followers are revolting against him and rebelling because he is craaaaazzyyyyyyyyyyy. 

Scene 3:

Characters:  Macbeth, Doctors, Attendants

Location:  A room inside Dunsinane castle

Events:   In this scene, Macbeth is so full of himself that he refuses to hear any more reports on the upcoming battle because he is so sure that he will not and can not be harmed because no man of woman borne can kill him, and Birnam wood has not come to Dunsinane. He hears that Malcolm’s army has 10,000  soldiers and he prepares to fight until the flesh is hacked off his bones.

Important Quotes: 

Scene 4:

Characters:

Events:

Quotes:

Scene 5:

Scene 1: 

Characters: 3 witches, Hecate, Macbeth, 3 Apparitions, Lenox

Events:

This is a very BIG scene… In the beginning, the 3 witches are creating an evil potion in a cauldron.  Hecate enters and commends the witches for their efforts. Macbeth enters and immediately starts demanding answers from the witches.   The witches tell Macbeth to listen and not ask of them They send an apparition ( a armed head) appeared saying to beware of Macduff. Macbeth demands more and a second apparition emerges, this one a bloody child. This apparition said that no man of woman borne shall harm Macbeth. This is a very dangerous prophecy because knowing no one can kill you gives you too much security, and for Macbeth, if he thinks no one can kill him, he is basically invincible.  Macbeth decides to kill Macduff anyway even if he knows no man from woman borne can kill him. A third apparition appears and says that Macbeth will never be vanquished until Great Birnam woods move to Dunsinane hill ( that is impossible). Too much security AGAIN. Macbeth asks if Banquo’s son will ever be King and he is presented with a vision of 8 Kings along with Banquo’s ghost.  The witches and apparitions disappear and Lenox arrives to tell Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth instantly decides to kill all his family and castle, including any poor souls that work for him.

Important Quotes:

1st Apparition: ‘Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware of Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife!’

2nd Apparition: ‘Be bloody, bold and resolute: laugh to scorn// The power of man, for none of woman born// Shall harm Macbeth!

3rd Apparition: ‘ Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care// Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are: Macbeth shall never be vanquished until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill// Shall come against him”

Macbeth: “The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to the edge of the sword// His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line”

Macbeth is heavily reliant on the prophecies he has been told, to the point where he will kill Macduff’s family,  even though they and Macduff pose no real threat ( the 2nd apparitions prophecy).  Macbeth has WAYYYYY too much security about being King.

Scene 2:

Characters: Lady Macduff, Rosse, Son, Messenger, Murderer

Location: In Fife, Macduff’s castle.

Events: Rosse tells Lady Macduff that she is in danger of Macbeth, she is angry her husband left his own son fatherless, he is dead to her.  Rosse leaves and she talks with he son about traitors and Macduff being a traitor. A messenger rushes to tell her to flee immediately but they are too late. A murderer enters and kills Macduff’s family.

Important Quotes:

Lady Macduff: “ Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles, in a place, From whence himself does fly? He loves us not”

Scene 3:

Characters: Macduff, Malcolm

Events:

Macduff has arrived in England and wants Malcolm to return to Scotland to overthrow Macbeth, but Malcolm is suspicious so he tests Macduff by pretending if he were to be King that he would be worse than Macbeth. Initially, Macduff argues that this doesn’t matter, but as Malcolm keeps speaking of his sins, Macduff is in despair. He has an outburst and says that Malcolm is not fit to be King, or to live! This is exactly what Malcolm needed to hear, and he reassures Macduff he was lying to test his loyalty.  Malcolm has an army ready to invade Macbeth.

Rosse arrives and reports rumors that the Sottish people are wanting to rise against Macbeth. He tells Macduff that his ALL of his family and servants etc.. were slaughtered. They prepare to invade Scotland !!!

Important Quotes: