Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

Macbeth
Additional Characters
• Donaldbain – Duncan's younger son
...

• Ross, Lennox, Angus, Menteith, Caithness – Scottish Thanes
...

• Young Siward – Siward's Son
...

• Captain – in the Scottish army
...

• Gentlewoman – Lady Macbeth's caretaker
...


Act 1:
• Play opens amongst thunder and lightning – three witches decide that their next meeting will be
with Macbeth
...


• Macbeth is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess
...


• The Witches tell Macbeth that he will be Thane of Cawdor and then King
...

• When Banquo asks of his fortunes the witches reply paradoxically, saying he will be less than
Macbeth but happier, less successful, but more
...


• While the two wonder at these prophecies, the Witches disappear and another Thane, Ross,
arrives and informs Macbeth that he is now Thane of Cawdor
...


• King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo and declares that he will spend the
night at Macbeth's castle in Inverness; he also names his son Malcolm as his heir
...


• Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband's uncertainty and wishes him to murder Duncan in
order to obtain kingship
...


• He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan's two chamberlains drunk so that they will black out;
the next morning they will blame the chamberlains for the murder
...


Scene 1:
• Thunder and Lightning (stage directions) – associated with evil
...
” – Trochaic tetrameter,
rhyming couplets sounds like incanting – rhythm-like chanting
...
Equivocal – the use of
ambiguous/evasive language
...
– Every witch had an animal servant
...

• Witches: Fair is foul, and foul is fair – equivocal language used by the witches
...

• Witches: hover through the fog and filthy air – black and hostile weather conditions, darkness
and unhealthiness, Gothic, black and remote setting
...


Scene 2:
• Alarum within (stage directions) – contrasts to scene 1, which opened with thunder and
lightning suggesting evil
...

• Duncan: What bloody man is that? – Highlights key theme of brutality and bloodshed as
Duncan is unable to recognise his captain
...

• Captain: with his brandished steel, Which smoked with bloody execution - celebration of
bloodshed
...

• Duncan: O Valiant Cousin, worthy gentleman – Duncan praising Macbeth’s brutality and
courage
...

• Ross: Bellona’s bridegroom – Associated with Roman Goddess of War, attributes mythological
war lore to Macbeth
...

• Duncan: What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won
...


• “Valour’s minion” (bravery’s favourite) “valiant cousin, worthy gentleman” “belladonna’s
bridegroom” - Epithets used by other characters to portray Macbeth as a valiant and courageous
hero
...

• Witches: “weird sisters” – in the original version weird is spelt “wyrd” which means fate –
supports the view that the witches control fate
...
Macbeth's opening lines are a linguistic echo of the witches' - suggests he is already in tune
with the witches’ ways of thinking
...

• Banquo: look not like the’inhabitants o’th’earth, and yet ar on’t?- do not look like inhabitants
of the earth
...

Director Roman Polanski made the witches meet on a beach due to its liminal setting of sea and
land, emphasising the witches’ unknowable nature
...

• Witches: Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none - witches tell Banquo that his descendants
will be kings
...

• Banquo: Are ye fantastical - Banquo is sceptical about whether the witches are supernatural or
real mortal women
...

• Stage Direction: Witches Vanish – supernatural but, unlike the Dagger or possibly Banquo's
ghost, we know they are real because two people have seen them, not only Macbeth
...
It also would have had the connotation of
being entranced by magic to a Jacobean audience
...
Not so happy, yet much happier
...

• Banquo: What, can the devil speak true? - Banquo recognises that the witches' prophecies have
some truth
...
Not 'rapt' like Macbeth
...
Why do you dress me / In borrowed robes? - nobility
associated with the metaphor of clothing
...
It also
shows their predictions as credible to the audience
...
By showing that the Witches prophecies are
credible, the audience are likely to expect predictions to unfold, although the ambiguous
language allows for an air of mystery regarding how
...
Could also be interpreted comically
...

• Banquo: The instruments of darkness tell us truths; win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in
deepest consequence – People use truth to mislead us – equivocal
...
Banquo is wary
...

• Macbeth: Why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make
my seated heart knock at my ribs – Macbeth thinks about murdering Duncan
...
Cannot say murder
...

• Macbeth: Why, chance may crown me without my stir - Macbeth considers leaving matters to
fate
...
Odd that he says this so definitively when he doesn't recognise this idea
for the rest of the play
...
Not suited to his role
...


Scene 4:
• Duncan: There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face – no way of knowing
somebody’s mind by looking at their face
...

• Duncan: He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust – Duncan is not a good judge
of character, is going to make the same mistake with the new Thane of Cawdor
...

• Macbeth: that is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap – recognises Malcolm as a
potential obstacle
...

• Macbeth: Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires – wants to conceal
his transgressive ambitions that are so terrible he cannot stand to have stars shine on them
...
Rhyming
couplets – sense of inevitability about what he has to do
...


Scene 5:
• Lady Macbeth reading letter from Macbeth: they have more in them than mortal knowledge
- The witches are superior to humans
...

• Lady Macbeth: and shalt be what thou art promised – the imperative “shalt” shows Lady
Macbeth’s determination
...
She worries that Macbeth will not be
able to do what he must because he is too kind
...

• Lady Macbeth: chastise with the valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden
round - Lady Macbeth plans to use her rhetoric to persuade Macbeth to murder Duncan
...

• Lady Macbeth: Unsex me here – wants femininity removed – parallel with witches who have
ambiguous gender (you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you
are so)
...

• Lady Macbeth: make thick my blood, stop up th’access and passage to remorse - Lady
Macbeth wants her blood to be made thick so that she can't feel regret
...

• Lady Macbeth: murd’ring ministers – contrasts to Macbeth who cannot verbalise the notion of
death
...
Hopes that her evil plans
will be shrouded in darkness and secrecy from everyone
...

• Lady Macbeth: your face, my thane, is a book where men may read strange matters – giving
away his feelings – recognises the danger of Macbeth’s transparency
...

• Macbeth: we will speak further – could mean one of three things: 1) – he is not convinced by
Lady Macbeth’s persuasion, 2) – he wants to reassert his authority over a demeaning wife, 3) –
wants to discuss further and plan more
...


Scene 6:
• Duncan: This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto
our gentle senses – dramatic irony – this is where his death has been planned
...
Duncan's compliment about Macbeth's castle highlights his
naivety
...
In Shakespearean times, can also be somebody who
is a gullible fool – befitting for Duncan
...

• Macbeth: if it were done when tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly – Macbeth
reflects that if he is going to kill Duncan then he needs to do it quickly
...
Still cannot say murder, evasive, avoiding saying the truth
...

• Macbeth: But in these cases we still have judgment here - Macbeth realises that he will be
judged (and damned) by God if he commits the murder
...
Macbeth fears that, if he murders the
king, when he becomes king others will do the same and he will be murdered in return
...

• Macbeth: hath borne his faculties so meek hath been so clear in his great office – reflects
on what a great king Duncan has been
...

• Macbeth: blow the horrid deed in every eye - Macbeth thinks that after killing Duncan,
heavens angels will make sure that everyone knows about the horror of the murder
...

• Macbeth: only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself - Macbeth recognises that his
ambition is excessive
...

• Lady Macbeth: Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? /
And Wakes it now to look so green and pale – hope = courage
...

• Lady Macbeth: Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in
desire? - Lady Macbeth questions whether Macbeth is afraid to display the same bravery in
his actions as he has in his thoughts
...

• Lady Macbeth: live a coward in thine own esteem - Lady Macbeth suggests that if
Macbeth doesn't kill Duncan he will have to live with himself as a coward
...

• Macbeth: I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none – willing to do
everything a real man would but any more is monstrous
...

• Lady Macbeth: when you durst do it, then you were a man – challenging Macbeth’s
masculinity
...


• Lady Macbeth: I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his
boneless gums and dashed the brains out – Lady Macbeth says that to display her loyalty,
she would have committed infanticide if she had promised it to Macbeth
...
Shows how far she would
go to keep a promise
...

• Lady Macbeth: “what cannot you and I perform upon th’unguarded Duncan?” - Lady
Macbeth reassures Macbeth that the murder of Duncan will be easy
...

• Macbeth: bring forth men-children only, for thy undaunted mettle should compose
nothing but males – complimenting her masculinity, so strong she should only bear male
children
...

• Macbeth: I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat – Macbeth
resolves to commit the murder
...

• Macbeth: mock the time with fairest show, false face must hide what the false heart doth
know – deception
...
Rhyming couplets compound sense of finality
...

• He is so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge
...

• Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife,
arrive
...

• Macbeth murders the guards to prevent them from professing their innocence, but claims he did
so in a fit of anger over their misdeeds
...

• The rightful heirs' flight make them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of
Scotland as a kinsman of the dead king
...


Scene 1:
• Banquo: There’s husbandry in heaven, their candles are all out – It’s dark, Macbeth’s request
that the “stars hide their fires” has been accepted, it is the perfect condition for murder
...
It is heavily implied by the epithet “cursed” that he is
thinking the same things as Macbeth
...
Argument for free will – Banquo and Macbeth as the depiction of
the choice of good vs evil
...
This diamond he greets your
wife withal – Duncan has given generous gifts to the servants that wait on Macbeth and a
Diamond to his wife
...

• Banquo: I dreamed last night of the weird sisters – confirms that his thoughts are specifically
related to the prophecy
...

• Macbeth: “is this a dagger which I see before me?” “the handle toward my hand?” art thou
not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false
creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” – syntax marked by questions – state of
uncertainty
...
1) the dagger is a dagger of Macbeth’s
imagination; 2) the dagger is conjured by the Witches to spur Macbeth on to kill Duncan
...

Ambiguity of free will vs fate is reflective of the ambiguity of the time – religious division, great
chain of being etc
...

• Macbeth: it is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes - Macbeth thinks that the
dagger is just a hallucination due to his thoughts about murder
...

• Macbeth: with Tarquin’s ravishing strides – a roman prince who raped Lucrece – attributing
notion of murder to sex and delight
...

• Macbeth: I go, and it is done
...

• Macbeth: Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell, that summons thee to heaven or hell – Knell’s
are associated with funerals and death
...

• Duncan’s death takes place offstage – highlights the taboo nature of Macbeth’s crime
...

• Macbeth: I have done the deed – confirms that he has murdered Duncan
...

• Lady Macbeth: I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry - Unnatural, gothic sounds
accompany Duncan's murder
...

Composition of dialogue is fragmented
...
Macbeth can't face the blood on his hands
...

• Macbeth: I could not say ‘Amen’ when they did say ‘God bless us
...

• Macbeth: I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen' stuck in my throat - Macbeth's inability to
pray after killing Duncan signals his damnation
...
'it will […] 'us' - recognises the potential for psychological
turmoil
...

• Macbeth: ‘Glamis hath murdered sleep’, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth
shall sleep no more – referring to all of his possible identities to reinforce how he will get no
sleep
...

• Lady Macbeth: Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers - Lady Macbeth takes charge
...

• Lady Macbeth: The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood that
fears a painted devil – thinks Macbeth’s fear of looking at the murdered Duncan is childish
...
incarnadine - a fleshy red
colour
...

• Lady Macbeth: a little water clears us of this deed – thinks she can get rid of their sin just by
washing the blood off of her hands, ironic as she later goes mad over the thought of blood and
begins to obsess over her hands – “out damned spot!” (5
...

• Macbeth: to know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself – does not recognise himself
...


Scene 3:
• Lennox: “unruly” “strange screams” “dire combustion” “feverous and did shake” - Lexical
field of auditory imagery and disruption
...
Auditory lexical
field enhances disruption as it is not only described but heard
...

• Lennox: the earth was feverous and did shake – there is disruption to the earth as a result of
Duncan’s murder
...
We are reminded that the Jacobeans believed in a divine order
...
A crime against the king,

therefore, was a crime against God
...
Satan was deemed responsible for unrest and it was believed that he worked through
witches and evil spirits to attack the divine order that God had installed
...
Shakespeare gives us a glimpse of what is to
happen during Macbeth’s reign as king
...

• Lennox: obscure bird - owl, omen of death
...
Macduff’s senses have been frozen, as shown by his inability
to articulate himself by the use of the exclamatory apostrophe and the epizeuxis of “horror,
horror, horror”
...

• Macduff: “lord” “temple” “most sacrilegious murder” – when he can get his thoughts together
he uses a lexical field of religious language to note the sacrilege of the murder
...

• Macduff: approach the chamber and destroy your sight / With a new Gorgon – Gorgon =
medusa
...

• Macduff uses exclamatory language with a lot of punctuation
...
Ben
Jonson “sudden outcries of genuine passion
...

• Macbeth uses poetic language, contemplating the insignificance of own human existence –
“there’s nothing serious in mortality”
...
Relates to
Act 1 scene 7 “we shall make our griefs and clamour roar”
...

• Macbeth: I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them” – Macbeth has also murdered the
sleeping guards to conceal his actions
...

• Macbeth: his silver skin laced with his golden blood – regal colours associated with royalty
...

• Malcolm: why do we hold our tongues, that most may claim This argument for ours? - saying
that him and Donaldbain could be blamed
...
Banquo
suspects foul play in the murder of Duncan
...


Scene 4:
• Old Man: used by Shakespeare to represent the common man and his point of view
...

• Ross: Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man’s act - great chain of being – nature has
been disrupted by Macbeth’s act of regicide
...
The soft alliteration of “living light” is starkly opposed to the plosive
“darkness does” – jarring contrast between the plosive sounds of reality and soft alliterative and
sibilant “living light should kiss it”
...
Shakespeare allows his audience to see that when God’s
appointed representative is murdered, the whole of nature is disturbed
...
The consequences of killing a king are portrayed as so terrible that the
attempt would not be worth contemplating
...

• Macduff: those that Macbeth hath slain – Dry observation that confirms Macduff’s suspicion
because he does not mention who Macbeth kills (the guards), instead directly attributing the act
of murder with Macbeth
...
Ross is saying that it
is a stupid ambition that causes a son to kill the father who supports him
...
Ross is implying that
Macbeth might not be innocent
...


Act 3:
• Despite his success Macbeth, aware of Banquo's prophecy, remains uneasy
...

• Fearing Banquo's suspicions, Macbeth arranges to have him murdered, by hiring two men to kill
them, later sending a Third Murderer
...

• Macbeth becomes furious; he fears that his power remains insecure as long as an heir of Banquo
remains alive
...

• Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place
...

• The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady
Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless malady
...


• This time Lady Macbeth tells the Lords to leave, and they do so
...
Banquo in
soliloquy thinks that Macbeth gained the crown through foul play
...

• Banquo: “but hush, no more” – says this after he considers whether the witches’ prophecy
about him will come true
...

• Macbeth: “Ride you this afternoon?” “is’t far you ride?” - Macbeth ascertains questions that
centre around Banquo’s whereabouts so that he can plan his murder
...
Obsessive nature of Macbeth’s desire to remain king
...

• Macbeth: our fears in Banquo stick deep – like a dagger
...

• Macbeth: in his royalty of nature reigns that which would be feared - his natural king like
ability is to be feared by Macbeth
...

• Macbeth: under him my genius is rebuked, as it is said Mark Anthony’s was by Caesar –
believed that you could be manipulated by someone who has a stronger spirit than you and here
he makes a comparison to Mark Anthony and Caesar as Mark Anthony thought his spirit was
overpowered by Caesar and, in turn, had him killed
...

• Macbeth: he chid the sisters when they first put the name of king upon me – Banquo, at that
point, saw the witches for what they were – evil spirits
...

• Macbeth: “upon my head they place a fruitless crown” “barren” “unlineal hand” – put a
barren crown and spectre upon him that will be taken by someone else
...
Lexical field of barrenness, reflects his deep-seated obsession with remaining king
...
His obsession isn’t to do with

---