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Very good Macbeth videos on YouTube
Summary of the whole play https://www
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com/watch?v=qfnUq2_0FOY
Miss ‘Geordie Stacey’ explains how to get a levels 7,8 9 https://www
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com/watch?v=j41uZEqx0o
100% essay on Macbeth and the Supernatural https://www
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com/watch?v=hIC-fgWNguw
Mr Salles Examiner report on how to get top grades
https://www
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com/watch?v=7Y5rsezLc1Y
The Divine Right of Kings https://www
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com/watch?v=wxoxyh5oxcM

Six ‘Macbeth’ essays by Wreake Valley students


No matter what level you are aiming for, you are likely to learn something useful in
each of these six example essays
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Level 4 essay
In Act 1, 7 Shakespeare shows how Lady Macbeth is ambitious and is determined to do the
murder when Macbeth thinks about failing
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This shows that she is trying to say he’s not a man like he used to
be, that he’s not strong enough to do the deed and doesn’t deserve to be called a “man”
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” This shows that she would rather kill her baby than not go through
with the plan
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The first key moment where we see what Lady Macbeth will be like in the rest of the play is
in Act 1, scene 5 when she gets the letter from Macbeth
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Shortly after that in Act 1, scene 7 (the extract) Lady Macbeth
convinces Macbeth to kill King Duncan that night
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In the seventeenth century it wouldn’t be normal for a
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woman to act like this, it would be about the man to make the plans and convince a woman
how easy it would be to do it
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In Act 1
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This shows she
wishes she was a man so she could kill King Duncan because she feels like she could kill him
mentally just not physically
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1 Lady Macbeth starts to sleep walk because she can’t deal with the fact that her
husband killed King Duncan and that it’s all her fault and she says “My bloody hands”
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This leads to her committing suicide
in Act 5
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Level 5 essay
Lady Macbeth is shown as forceful and bullies Macbeth here in act 1
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This follows from when Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth to
be ambitious when Macbeth writes her a letter and she reads it as a soliloquy in act 1
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After this letter she stated to Macbeth “Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent
under’t” which implies that she wants Macbeth to carry out her plan of committing the
regicide towards King Duncan
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However, in front of the audience
Lady Macbeth clearly disagrees with this as she states “Unsex me here” which proves the
point that Lady Macbeth wants to become a man so she can commit the regicide herself
instead of ‘useless’ husband
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Back in the seventeenth
century, if this was to happen they would be going against the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ which
is when God chooses the next king because society was highly religious then
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Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth to be mentally unstable in act 1 scene 7 and then again
in act 5
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Later on in the play in act 5, scene
1 Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and sees blood on her hands saying “All the perfumes of Arabia
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can’t sweeten this little hand” which shows that all the guilt has built up inside her
throughout the play and has made her hallucinate blood on her hands
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Going back to how Shakespeare showed Lady Macbeth to be more dominant in Act 1, scene
7, she has far more to say than Macbeth because of her scheming mind and how she wants
to make it very clear about her plan for regicide
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We could compare Lady Macbeth
to the three “weird sisters” because they are both full of supernatural desires and back in
1606 (when the play was written) witches were shown as supernatural and people were
afraid of their powers and links to the devil
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”

Level 6 essay
In this scene Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a very manipulative woman when she says the
declarative sentence “Be so much more the man” as she knows that Macbeth takes his manliness
very seriously
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By using straightforward monosyllabic words in “Be so
much more the man” shows how direct she is when she is tempting him
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In this scene Shakespeare also presents Lady Macbeth as immensely determined and very ambitious
when she tells Macbeth that she would have “Dash’d the brains out” of her child if she was in his
position and did not commit regicide
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Shakespeare also presents Lady Macbeth as a cold hearted traitor when she plans the regicide
shown when she suggests to Macbeth “What can you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan?”
and “his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell”
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In terms of context, this also shows how she
did not believe in the Divine Right of kings or how she was very willing to break it in order to achieve
her aims
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As a results of this
scene their relationship deteriorates as Macbeth turns to the witches for advice and follows his path
to mass killings and his own death
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This is shown when she sleepwalks and says the exclamative sentence “Out
damned spot, out I say!” this quote shows how she is hallucinating blood on her hands
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Lady Macbeth is also a direct juxtaposition to the character of Lady Macduff which is shown when
Lady Macduff talks to her children
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In contrast, it is implied that Lady Macbeth had a child but it died and she would “have
pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,” which is far from maternal and would have added
towards the audience’s dislike of Lady Macbeth
Overall, in the play I feel that Shakespeare presented Lady Macbeth as a woman who had wanted
more power which juxtaposes with the time that it was originally performed in, this is shown clearly
by her exclamative “ Unsex me here!”
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Language terminology, quotations, knowledge of whole play
EBI: more context

Level 7 essay
Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the extract as a manipulative, spiteful and selfish character
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“When you durst do it then you were a man
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The quotation hints at Lady Macbeth potentially
trading her body for power, something that we know witches were thought to do with Satan
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The theme of being weak minded and mentally unstable continues throughout
the play
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This is
violent imagery that shows Lady Macbeth’s own personal anguish
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Lady
Macbeth is shown by Shakespeare to be strongly emotional, passionate and ambitious; these act
almost as her hamartias leading to her eventual suicide in act 5
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It is this sparking of emotion in Shakespeare’s audience that builds his
successful career as a playwright as he understood the emotions and interests of his seventeenth
century audience
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This dominance over her husband only reinforces the idea of rejection of gender
expectations
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This emphasises
her power but also hints at her insecurities suggesting she may be projecting her own egotistical
view of her personal strength due to overwhelming passion and ambition
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We see this as she tells
Macbeth to pretend to be brave
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”
Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses the noun “milk” which in this extract can be seen by Lady
Macbeth to reject her femininity and also as a contrast between being a mother and letting her
masculine ambition take over
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This idea is also shown in Act 1,5 when upon reading the
letter of the prophecies she declares in her soliloquy that Macbeth is “too full o’ the milk of human
kindness”
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Lady Macbeth is shown by Shakespeare to repeatedly insult her husband by calling
him a “coward” and weak
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Arguably, from this point in the play he is haunted with a fear of criticism and
is willing to kill people to prove that he is still the “brave Macbeth” that he was described as in Act 1
scene 2
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As the play progresses Lady Macbeth’s previously masculine qualities appear to transfer
onto Macbeth who becomes more ambitious but as a consequence mentally unstable
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1 and reported suicide in Act 5
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To celebrate his coronation, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth host a banquet (Act 3
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In terms of
context, these banquets were huge events that helped mark the beginning of a new king’s reign;
they were instrumental in deciding the success of a ruling monarch
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Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this scene as concerned and
worried
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In conclusion, throughout the play Lady Macbeth is shown to be manipulative, insecure and
ambitious
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Lady Macbeth is also a tool for showing character progression and acts as a mortal
puppeteer reminiscent of the immortal puppeteers that are the witches
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Lady Macbeth is left as a distant foul-tasting memory in the eyes of the
audience
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Knowledge of plot, characters and context
EBI
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We see her downfall
starts to develop as Macbeth becomes more influenced by the supernatural and his desire for the
security of his power
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At the beginning of the extract Lady Macbeth lashes out at Macbeth’s cowardice saying “what beast
was’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to me?” At this point Lady Macbeth stops referring
to Macbeth as the intimate ‘thou’ and instead opts for the more distant ‘you’
...
This change really emphasises the extent that Lady Macbeth will go to for her
desire of power and control
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This
allows us to see that in all evil there is still good and vice versa
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Shakespeare has the witches to deliver these introductory lines to symbolise their importance and
show us how they arguably have full control over the outcome of the play
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She tells him that she would go as far as to murder her own
new-born child in “plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash’d his brains out
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This would naturally shock any audience as children were, and
still are, seen as innocent in their minds and bodies and pure in their hearts – a complete contrast of
the woman that Lady Macbeth is representing
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Children and the ability to have them was also seen as a blessing from God
telling the audience that, by theorising the infanticide, Lady Macbeth is prepared to go against God,
the highest power in the Great Chain of Being
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Towards the end of the extract, Lady Macbeth calms down from her infuriated state and begins to
use persuasive techniques on her husband by saying “what cannot you and I perform upon the
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unguarded Duncan?” Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth say this to show that she can manipulate
her husband in calmer ways and bribe him to do her bidding if he feels in a secure and confident
state of mind
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This
quotation also foreshadows the earlier point later in the play when Lady Macbeth says she is unable
to kill King Duncan
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Shakespeare does this to show Macbeth’s tyrannical behaviour becoming stronger which
means Lady Macbeth no longer needs to assist him
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This is demonstrated through her constant emasculation
of him, especially in the earlier part of the extract
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By
stating that he would be “so much more a man” the use of the comparative “more” implies that he
is not ‘manly’ at that moment hence Lady Macbeth loses respect for her battle-hero husband, the
once “Brave Macbeth” of Act 1, scene 2
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Lady Macbeth’s attitude towards Macbeth changes as the
play proceeds and as Macbeth metamorphoses from hero to guilt-ridden monarch and then into an
insecure and barbarous, bellicose zealot
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In the 17th century (and in the 11th
century in which the play was set) women were expected to be submissive to their husbands, hence
Shakespeare, by presenting a role reversal such as this, demonstrates that the Macbeth family is not
as it seems and is possibly quite dangerous, ‘unnatural’ and (in a Jacobean period rife with
supernatural fear) possibly evil due to the skewed power dynamic
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By presenting a masculine woman he is further amplifying the notability of this connection
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As a
result, Shakespeare’s exposure of the crueller sides of masculinity through a woman no less, are far
more noticeable than through a man
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One interesting thing to note is that, as Macbeth changes and becomes more emotionally strong,
established as a king, dominant and hubristically independent, Lady Macbeth becomes less and less
relevant
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The audience don’t see Lady Macbeth at all in Act 4, and the last the we physically see her,
in Act 5, she is having hallucinations shown by “Out damned spot” and has gone mad with guilt,
eventually killing herself
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Perhaps, through this, Shakespeare
is demonstrating a view that the traditional family values of the seventeenth century are, in fact, a
negative thing
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Firstly, it’s the regicide of King Duncan, then the murder of Banquo,
then the hallucinations at the banquet and then finally Lady Macbeth’s insanity and suicide
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In conclusion, Shakespeare utilises domineering language and masculine tendencies to present Lady
Macbeth as very atypical for his time period and as an anchor to express his views on Jacobean
perception of what it means to be masculine and its negative effect on people
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WWW: personal response, knowledge of plot and characters, quotations
EBI: more terminology

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