Quotes About Violence in Macbeth

Basically the first thing we know about Macbeth is that he's disemboweled—"unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps"—and then beheaded someone. We're not sure if we're supposed to be impressed or a little afraid, but Duncan thinks this is so awesome that Macbeth gets rewarded with Cawdor. Hm. We're obviously in a violent, warrior culture here, so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised when Duncan ends up dead.

Oh, BTW, the captain is totally bleeding through his long recitation about the battle. Notice that the Captain compares the flow of blood that gushes from his wounds to a voice that "cries for help," and King Duncan picks up on the association between "wounds" and "words." Duncan replies that the Captain's gashes and his verbal report of what's been taking place on the field of battle make him an honorable man. It looks like not all violence involves blood, and sometimes words can hurt.

Check out how the captain describes the battle: as "another Golgotha." But Golgotha is traditionally the place where Christ was said to have been crucified. To us, that sounds like a pretty ominous way of describing the battlefield.

The Captain waxes poetic with his description here, as though violence is something that can be beautiful and noble—even glorious. Does Macbeth glorify violence?

(1) We all but start with a bloody man, which doesn’t bode well for the eventual body count (2) This guy is our king. Shouldn't he be a little bloody, too? Is he just letting everyone else fight his battles for him?

Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to make her "cruel," and what's cool is that, where the men in this play are constantly going around bleeding, Lady Macbeth wants her blood to stop. What does this say about the relationship between violence and gender?

Like potato chips, you can't have just one murder. All Macbeth wanted to do was kill the king, and now he's off to slaughter some innocent babes. (Pro tip: just don't buy the bag of potato chips in the first place.)

Malcolm wants to take a second to weep about his murdered father, but Macduff is ready to get some avenging done. Notice how he talks about it, though. He doesn't say, "Let's go kill us some men"; he says, "Let's go make some widows and orphans." Is this just a poetic way of saying it, or is this Shakespeare slyly reminding us that violence has consequences?

If your son has to die in battle, you at least want him to die with his wounds "before," or in front, facing the enemy. For Siward, this is the best possible way for a young man to die. (No word about living to a ripe old age, of course.)