Macbeth Quote Analysis

Macbeth responds to the prophecy by confidently asserting that a forest cannot move, therefore he will never be defeated.

Macbeth phrases his confidence as rhetorical questions—'Who can impress the forest; bid the tree / Unfix his earth-bound root?'—which implies the answer is 'no one,' but questions (unlike statements) always leave room for an answer. The image of a tree 'unfixing' its root will be fulfilled literally when Malcolm's soldiers cut branches and carry them, showing that Macbeth's failure is one of imagination: he cannot conceive of metaphor becoming reality.

Use this to argue that Macbeth's downfall is partly linguistic—he interprets prophecies too literally and cannot imagine that 'Birnam Wood' might move through human action rather than magic. His rhetorical questions here reveal the limits of his thinking, which the play will exploit.