Macbeth Duality to characters Act One

"For brave Macbeth-well he deserves that name...unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps and fix'd his head upon the battlements""/"My thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical, shakes so my single still of man"
1. Macbeth is named brave for his performance in the war yet becomes scared of the thought of murdering Duncan- can killing ever be brave?
2. "The Prince of Cumberland, that is a step I must fall down or else o'er leap, for in my way it lies. Stars hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires"/"He's here in double trust"/"We will speak no more of this. He hath honoured me of late"
  1. "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, only vaulting ambition"
    1. Macbeth's attitude towards the murder conflicts with him throughout the build up to the murder, presenting him as complex and the gothic double- does this suggest he fulfills the criteria of a gothic protagonist
    2. "This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, why hath it given me earnest of success commercing in a truth? If good, while do I yeild in that suggestion, whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature?"
"Fair is foul and foul is fair"/"Such foul and fair a day I have not seen"
1. Is Macbeth already evil or has he been taken over by the witches?
"I have given suck and know how tender tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums and dashed the brains out had I sworn to this as you have"
1. Lady Macbeth can be said to be motivated by grief rather than ambition to persaude her husband to murder Duncan, in attempt to consolidate her loss- or is she fighting partriarahy and what it is to be feminine instead? Think about her silioquay, she wants the spirits to 'unsex' her before we hear of any notion that she has lost a child
  1. Seeking out the spirits could also indicate that she is the fourth witch or she is psychologically unstable
"When the battle's lost and won"/"What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won"
1. Winning and losing is a key theme- it is ironic that Macbeth is named noble as when is losing the battle, one can still interpret that he is still noble despite his crimes- what constitutes being noble?
  1. It is also ironic that Duncan calls Macbeth noble due to Act 2- he murders him at night in his sleep which suggests that he is cowardly, not brave or noble
"I burned in desire to question them further"/"My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten"/"Think upon what hath chanc'd
1. Macbeth lies about not being interested in the witches but asks Banquo to think of them more- he tells his 'dearest partner of greatness' the truth, which suggests a gender subversion and shows his dual sides

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Macbeth Duality to characters Act One

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