Macbeth Revision Booklet

Area of focus:AO2 - Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant

subject terminology where appropriate.

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The activities in this booklet are designed to help you to improve your comments on and analysis of

Shakespeare’s methods.

Macbeth Revision Booklet Wonderfully wicked weather.

Shakespeare provides information about the weather throughout the play. He usually does this to convey a particular mood or atmosphere. Read through the example and annotations and then work through tasks 1-3.

Example:

Act 1 Scene 1

‘When shall we three meet again,

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’

‘Fair is foul and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.’

Shakespeare opens Act 1, Scene 1 with a dramatic outdoor scene. He uses a three point list ‘In thunder, lightning, or in rain’ to bombard the audience with a description of the extreme weather. During a performance in the Jacobean era, it would have been hard to create special effects so Shakespeare’s language must set the scene for the audience. In addition, he creates alliteration through the repetition of ‘f’ in ‘foul’, ‘fair’ and ‘fog and filthy air’. This alliteration adds to the rhythmic chanting of the eerie witches and it also reminds the audience that the awful weather could indicate that something sinister is about to happen.

Task 1:

Read Lennox’s speech from Act 2 Scene 3 -

Lennox: ‘The night has been unruly – where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,

Lamentings heard in the air, strange screams of death

And prophesying with accents terrible

Of dire combustion and confused events,

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3 point list

Extreme weather

Foreboding

Alliteration ‘f’

The clouded air obscures vision

Macbeth Revision BookletNew hatched to th’woeful time. The obscure bird

Clamoured the livelong night. Some say, the earth

Was feverous and did shake.’

-Label where the weather is mentioned and label any devices or word classes.

-Produce your own analytical paragraph commenting on how Shakespeare’s methods add to the drama in the scene or reveal wider ideas about the play.

Task 2 – In Act 5, Scene 6, Macbeth realises that he is about to be defeated. He says the following lines:

‘I begin to be a-weary of the sun.’ and ‘Blow wind! Come wrack!’

What do these two lines reveal about his state of mind/attitude at this point in the play? How do the references to the weather help to illustrate the feelings he is experiencing?

Task 3 – Read through the other scenes that we have studied as a class and see what other references to the weather you can find.

Try to select your own extracts to analyse.

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Macbeth Revision BookletAmazing Animals.

Shakespeare often uses animals to symbolise the qualities or nature of a character. If you describe the imagery of animals or the symbolism of an animal, you will be showing that you

can discuss Shakespeare’s language methods.

Task 1 - Act 1, Scene 5

Once Lady Macbeth has persuaded Macbeth to go through with the plot to murder Duncan, she declares:

‘The raven himself is hoarse, that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.’

What does the raven symbolise?

How does this animal reference help the audience to get a sense of where the play is going?

Can you think of any other examples where birds were referenced in the play?

Task 2 – Act 1, Scene 5

When Lady Macbeth is trying to coach her husband on how to be more dastardly, she advises him, ‘Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ’t’.

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1. What does the snake symbolise in the story of ‘The Garden of Eden’.

2. How does this tie into the themes of Macbeth?3. What is Lady Macbeth saying to Macbeth here?

Macbeth Revision Booklet

Task 3 - Act 3, Scene 4

In Act 3, Scene 4, Macbeth finds out that the murderer has only managed to kill Banquo. Unfortunately, for Macbeth, Fleance (Banquo’s son) has escaped.

Macbeth states: ‘There the grown serpent lies; the worm has fled.’

Discuss why Macbeth describes Banquo and Fleance in this way. What does Shakespeare want to show about Macbeth’s current state of mind?

Task 4 – Can you find any examples of your own where Shakespeare uses animals to signify larger themes?

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Macbeth Revision Booklet

Marvellous Metaphors.

Shakespeare often makes a direct link to religious or supernatural ideas. When he transforms a character or an idea into something else, we call it a

metaphor.

Example: In Act 2, Scene 3, when Macduff finds King Duncan’s body he cries out -

‘Most sacrilegious murder hath broke open

The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence

The life of the building.’

In this extract Shakespeare transforms King Duncan into a temple. Here is what you could say about this particular metaphor:

In order to convey just how distraught Macduff is when he finds King Duncan’s body, Shakespeare uses a metaphor. Macduff cries out that the act of murder has ‘broke open The Lord’s anointed temple and stole hence the life of the building.’ In the 1600’s, the king was believed to be the ‘hand’ or instrument of God. Therefore, anybody trying to interfere or tamper with the king was essentially going against God’s will. Shakespeare conveys this attitude effectively as King Duncan is transformed into a holy temple and this intensifies just how heinous his murder is.

Practise!

Consider these other metaphors and produce a detailed comment on what you think they mean and what they reveal about the character’s feelings or social attitudes of the time period.

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Macbeth Revision BookletAct 1, Scene 3, Banquo – ‘And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths.’

Act 1, Scene 7, Macbeth – ‘that but this blow

Might be the be-all and end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We'd jump the life to come.’

Act 1, Scene 7, Macbeth – ‘his virtues will plead like angels trumpet-tongued.’

Act 2, Scene 2, Lady Macbeth – ‘The sleeping and the dead

Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood

That fears a painted devil.’

Act 2, Scene 3, Macbeth – ‘Renown and grace is dead,

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees is left this vault to brag of.’

Act 4, Scene 4, Malcolm about Macbeth – ‘Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace.’

Act 4, Scene 3, Macduff to Malcolm – ‘I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;

It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash

Is added to her wounds.’

Act 5, Scene 5, Macbeth after his wife’s suicide – ‘Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.’

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