Macbeth

‘A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia…’

Okay, there’s a little more to the play than that but you get the idea. Here’s a short video to help refresh your memory on the basics…

List of the main characters:

• Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth
• King Duncan
• Malcom (King Duncan’s son)
• Banquo (Macbeth’s bestfriend)
• Macduff
• Lady Macduff
• Fleance (Banquo’s son)
• Donalbain (King Duncan’s youngest son)
• Three witches

(Activity: For each character write a quotation suggesting what they are like)

Themes in the play:

• Guilt
• Madness
• Death
• Supernatural
• Good and evil
• Power (abuse of power)
• Betrayal

(Activity: Think of an example for each them and write one or two quotations)

Key scenes in the play:

• Act 1 Scene 1- Witches make their first prophecy
• Act 1 Scene 5- Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth
• Act 2 Scene 1- Macbeth see’s the floating dagger
• Act 2 Scene 2- Murder of King Duncan
• Act 3 Scene 4- Banquo’s ghost at the Banquet (Macbeth begins to go mad)
• Act 4 Scene 1- Macbeth visits the witches, they makes their second prophecy
• Act 5 Scene 1- Lady Macbeth goes mad
• Act 5 Scene 8- Macbeth’s death

(Activity: Go through your copy of Macbeth and annotate/analyse these key scenes for quotations that you could remember)

So, so far we have broken Macbeth down into, Characters, themes and key scenes. This has already made the burden of Shakespeare lighter!

In the exam you will have 45 minutes to write about an extract that you are given and how you can relate that extract/question to the rest of the play.

Let’s have a look at an example: (follow the link and find the question on Macbeth)

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-87021-SQP-V1.PDF

Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman.

Write about:

• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech

• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole.

Okay, so we are given an extract of Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy after she hears that King Duncan will be visiting.

How is Lady Macbeth presented as a ‘powerful woman’ in the extract? Let’s have a look. (If you already feel confident annotating and analysing extracts, you may want to skip this part)

‘raven’

Immediately this word catches my attention, why? What are the connotations of a raven? Death. They symbolise death, sadness, something bad or unpleasant (think of horror films) so the audience is already given the impression that something ominous (something bad) is about to happen.

‘croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements’

What key words here tell us that Duncan is in for a nasty surprise when he visits Macbeth? Did you say ‘fatal’? You would be correct! By definition ‘fatal’ is something big and bad, so our suspicions that Lady Macbeth is planning something evil have been confirmed. Also, the use of the pronoun ‘my’ in ‘my battlements’ suggest that she feels in control and empowered by this horrid plan to kill King Duncan with her husband and take the Crown.

‘Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up th’access and passage to remorse That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between Th’effect and it. ‘

What do you think Lady Macbeth is trying to achieve by asking the spirits to ‘unsex’ her? It could be interpreted that she is asking for all her mortal (human) qualities to be taken from her and to become something other than a human ‘make thick my blood’. Why would not want to be human anymore? Well, it’s a well known fact that as humans we feel emotions even when we don’t want to, Lady Macbeth is asking not to be human so that she is immune to those feelings and can be as evil as she likes without feel guilty (remorse) ‘stop up th’access and passage to remorse.’ How can we relate this back to the question? Simple, Lady Macbeth feels powerful enough to demand to not be human anymore, she is power hungry for more control and feels that by being something other than human will help her succeed with her evil plan.

Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief.

Lady Macbeth begins to talk about ‘nature’ here, why? Well, women are perceived as very nurturing and are a sacred vessel for life, so Lady Macbeth feels very powerful that she is very important to nature because she can give life, and now she’s plotting to take it away. ‘Take my milk’ is almost as if she is committing her self, giving herself to the plot to murder the king. ‘You wait on natures’ mischief’ could be Lady Macbeth referring to herself in third person, feeling so powerful that she feels like she IS nature, not just important to it. Furthermore, to develop this idea of women being nurturing, surely Lady Macbeth’s plans for Duncan contrasts to this, could this be an example of juxtaposition? Does Lady Macbeth feel more important than nature? Think about the connotations of the word ‘mischief’ also…

my keen knife see not the wound it makes Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

‘Keen knife’ suggest that Lady Macbeth feels very powerful because she is almost excited by the idea to kill King Duncan and get her crown! Why would she mentioned ‘heaven’? Who might ‘peep through the blanket of the dark’ to try and stop Lady Macbeth commit this murder?

Now that we have annotated and analysed the extract given you should be prepared to write about it. I’d aim for at least 2 good sized paragraphs on the extract.

 

The second half of your answer is to be focused on the rest of the play, so let’s see where we could apply that Lady Macbeth is powerful. (Now would be a good idea to have a look at the work you did on the ‘key scenes’ to help you with this part of the question)

In Act 1 Scene Scene 5 Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill King Duncan:

 Macbeth declares that he no longer intends to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth, outraged, calls him a coward and questions his manhood: “When you durst do it,” she says, “then you were a man” This shows that Lady Macbeth is feeling in control and powerful as she is persuading her husband to do something evil and wrong. She calls his a coward, saying that if he did kill the king, then he would be a man #manipulation

Act 3 Scene 2 Another time that Lady Macbeth may be viewed as powerful is after Macbeth has killed King Duncan. Whilst Macbeth is suffering with the guilt of killing the King and confesses to his wife that he cannot eat or sleep she tells him ‘you must leave this’ she wants to put on a brave face for their guests and doesn’t want people to be suspicious.

 

Now we’re ready to start putting our ideas together into an answer.

I will now write a model answer to give you something to reference to:

 

In the extract Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a powerful woman through the use of a soliloquy depicting that she no longer wants to be human. By summoning the spirits to ‘unsex’ her she demonstrates her power, control and manipulation. Lady Macbeth is asking for all her human qualities to disappear and to become immortal ‘make thick my blood’ by doing so she would become desensitised to human feelings; for example guilt and compassion. Furthermore, having devised an evil plan to kill King Duncan, she is worried that her human emotions will get in the way, making her feel guilty and remorseful ‘Stop up th’access and passage to remorse’,  getting rid of any trace of human qualities will Lady  fulfil Lady Macbeth’s ruthless quest to become Queen of Scotland. Shakespeare uses nature to show that Lady Macbeth is powerful because nature is unattainable, however, Lady Macbeth feels that she is better and able to control nature by asking it to change her and fill her with ‘direst cruelty’, this makes the audience feel intimidated by Lady Macbeth’s powerful character.

• Point
• Evidence
• Explanation
• Furthermore
• Shakespeare

Now, try one of your own using the sentence starters below:

P- In this extract Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as powerful by using…

E- As seen in the quotation…

E- This indicates to the audience that…

F- Furthermore, a key (word/technique) to support this is ____ because…

S- Therefore, Shakespeare does this so the audience’s reaction to the character of Lady Macbeth is…

 

Now we have completed the first 2 paragraphs on the extract, we need to concentrate of the ‘rest of the play’.

Having already looked at the rest of the play in our notes, we just need to construct them into paragraphs

• Lady Macbeth’s manipulation and persuasion to get Macbeth to kill King Duncan- Act 1 Scene 5
• Macbeth is suffering with a guilty conscience and Lady Macbeth tells him to snap out of it and put on a brave face for their guests Act 3 Scene 2

I shall illustrate the first paragraph for you:

Lady Macbeth is a powerful character in other parts of the play as well, she manipulates and persuades Macbeth into killing King Duncan in Act 1 Scene 5. After the arrival of the King Macbeth begins to reconsider his and Lady Macbeth’s plan and tells her ‘we shall proceed no further’, Lady Macbeth is presented as powerful by cleverly manipulating Macbeth by referring to him as a coward ‘when you durst do it, then you were a man’. Lady Macbeth challenges Macbeth’s masculinity ‘then you were a man’,she knows he will want to prove her wrong. A key word to support this argument is by using the past tense ‘were’ indicating that to Lady Macbeth her husband is weak and no longer strong because he has gone back on his promise to her. Furthermore, by declaring that Macbeth will only be a man if he goes through with the murder of King Duncan illustrates to the audience Lady Macbeth’s power over her husband making the audience feel inferior to her.

• Point
• Evidence
• Explanation
• Furthermore
• Shakespeare

You should now practice your own paragraph exploring how Lady Macbeth is presented as powerful in the rest of the play. You may use these sentence starters:

P- During other parts of the play Lady Macbeth can be seen to be powerful because…

E- This is evident in Act_ Scene_ as shown in this quotation ‘______’

E- Lady Macbeth displays her powerful character here because…

F- Furthermore, a key (word/technique) to reveal this is ‘_____’ because…

S- By doing this Shakespeare makes the audience feel ______ towards Lady Macbeth

 

By going through Macbeth step-by-step you should feel lot happier with how to tackle the question. Attached is another example question, give it a go and use the sentence starters below.

full-exam-deceptionfull-exam-witchesfull-exam-macduff-and-braveryfull-exam-lady-m-weaknessfull-exam-good-and-evilfull-exam-fear-duncans-sonsfull-exam-difficult-decisions

Sentence starters: macbeth-sentence-starters

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zsj2xnb/revision (another very useful walk through of a question)