AQA English Literature Paper 1

Macbeth

Revision booklet

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REMINDER
In the exam, you will be presented with a short extract from the play.

There will only be ONE question on Macbeth – you MUST answer it!

The question will ask you to focus on the extract (examiners expect to see
close language analysis) and then relate it to elsewhere in the play, so you can
show your understanding of the whole play.

You are advised to spend 45 minutes writing your response to Macbeth and
then 5 minutes carefully proof-reading it for SPAG accuracy!

(You then spend the next 50 minutes in this exam writing your response
to the question on Dickens’ novel, ‘A Christmas Carol’.)

SPAG is marked for your Macbeth answer – so spend 5 minutes checking and
correcting any mistakes you might have made when writing against the clock!

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 Plot summary

1. While returning from a battle victory, Macbeth, a powerful lord, meets three Witches who predict that he
will become King of Scotland.
2. Macbeth tells his wife of the Witches' predictions and she encourages him to murder the current king,
Duncan, who is staying with them as a guest.
3. After Macduff discovers the murder, Duncan's sons flee the country, leaving the way clear for Macbeth to
become king.
4. Banquo, Macbeth's best friend, becomes suspicious of what his friend has done so Macbeth has him
murdered too.
5. Macbeth pays a second visit to the Witches and receives more predictions.
6. In England, Malcolm (Duncan's elder son) and his chief supporter, Macduff, plan to invade Scotland to win
back the throne. An enraged Macbeth has Macduff's wife and children killed; Macduff swears revenge.
7. Lady Macbeth suffers from guilt for what she has done and eventually commits suicide.
8. Malcolm's invasion is successful and Macduff kills Macbeth. Malcolm becomes the new King of Scotland and
the country counts the cost of Macbeth's short but bloody reign.
 Macbeth: Some important historical, social and cultural contexts
Up until Henry VIII chose to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, England was a country where
people practised the Roman Catholic faith, under the leadership of the Pope in Rome. Henry wanted
to divorce Catherine of Aragon for several reasons: mainly, he had not fallen in love with her; in fact,
she was supposed to marry Henry’s brother, Arthur, but he died. Put simply, when Henry became
king of England, he appealed to the Pope in Rome to annul his marriage to Catherine but the Pope
refused, saying that marriage was a lifelong contract agreed in church in the presence of God.

Henry decided to divorce himself and the English kingdom from the Catholic church. He established
the Church of England and, as the reigning monarch, installed himself as the head of the Church of
England. He set about dismantling the abbeys throughout his kingdom, seizing all the precious gold
and silver, jewel-encrusted ornaments for himself and his new branch of Christianity became known
as Protestantism (because of the protests made to Rome regarding his divorce).

This led to very deep divisions between people throughout England. In your own lifetime, a
comparable divide is the recent Brexit campaign and result, which is still on everyone’s lips and
which remains the cause of some social and political tension, unrest, and disagreement in our
society.

The unrest caused by Henry’s decision to split from the Catholic church continued long after his own
lifetime. When he died, his daughter became Queen Elizabeth I and, like her father, she was a
Protestant. During her lifetime there were several assassination attempts and plots to overthrow her
by Catholics who wished to return England to the supreme leadership of the Pope in Rome. Some of
those plots were led by Elizabeth’s own catholic cousin, Mary – Queen of Scots.

Elizabeth grew tired of Mary’s plots and eventually agreed to her execution. Following Mary’s
beheading, her son James became James VI of Scotland and when the childless Elizabeth I grew old
and died, James seized the throne of England and became the first King James of England.

King James I and the Gunpowder Plot

Before ascending to the throne of England, James has begun to build a trusting relationship with
Elizabeth I, although English Catholics hoped he would show them more tolerance than she had.
Despite this, James was as intolerant of Catholics as Elizabeth and consequently, Catholic plots to
assassinate King James formed. The most famous of these assassination attempts is known as The
Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Interestingly, to commemorate King James’ lucky escape a medal was
commissioned showing a snake concealed by flowers. In the play, when plotting the regicide of King
Duncan, Lady Macbeth tells her husband: “Look like the innocent flower/But be the serpent
under’t.”

Above: the medal issued to commemorate the failed assassination of King James I

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Also, one of the men involved in the Gunpowder Plot, Everard Digby, had been a close friend of King
James and in the play is probably mirrored by the treasonous thane of Cawdor. No wonder King
Duncan says of the thane of Cawdor: “There’s no art/To find the mind’s construction in the face./He
was a gentleman on whom I built/An absolute trust.” King James, sitting in the audience watching
the very first performance of ‘Macbeth’, knew only too well the sense of betrayal expressed by King
Duncan here.

Lastly, a major theme in the play is that of equivocation, which means to tell deliberately misleading
half-truths. The witches equivocate in the play because they inform Macbeth that “No man born of
a woman” can harm him, leading him to imagine himself to be invincible and that he will be
unbeaten until Birnam Wood (a forest) moves towards his castle. Importantly, Macbeth’s noble
friend, Banquo, does warn Macbeth about the witches and their prophecies when he advises:
“Oftentimes, to win us to our harm the instruments of darkness tells us truths, win us with honest
trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence.”

So, in what way might the theme of equivocation be connected to historical, social and cultural
contexts? Well, in 1606 a Catholic priest named Henry Garnet was accused of treason, for the role
he played in the Gunpowder Plot. When he was put on trial, he was found guilty of committing a
crime called perjury (giving false evidence to the court) but he claimed the right to equivocate (to
tell deliberately misleading half-truths) in self-defence. So, not only was equivocation a burning issue
in England when Shakespeare was writing the play but events which unfold within it perhaps also
reflects his personal view of it: namely, people who equivocate are not to be trusted – whether they
are witches in 11th century Scotland or Catholic priests in 17th century England.

King James I and Witchcraft

Belief in witches and witchcraft was widespread across Europe during the 16 and 17th centuries and
during the reign of Elizabeth I, persecution of people accused of witchcraft reached terrifying
proportions. Hundreds of people – mostly women – were tortured, convicted and then executed for
this crime between 1560 and 1603 in England.

People genuinely believed that witches possessed diabolical powers: it was believed that witches
could fly, sail in sieves, create night during the day (we call this a solar eclipse today), cause fogs and
storms, disease and even a person or an animal to die because of a curse. A witches curse was
believed to have the power to cause infertility or to induce nightmares. Witches were also believed
to be able to conjure spirits by concocting a horrible brew, typically made using animal entrails and
other nauseating ingredients. When Lady Macbeth conjures evil spirits, the Jacobean audience
watching the play would have identified her as a witch inviting spirits to take possession of her body.
They would have been horrified that she so willingly condemns her Christian soul to Hell because of
her lust for power.

In 1604 when Shakespeare was writing the play, an Act of Parliament decreed that the punishment
for those convicted of witchcraft would be execution. Confessions, however, were typically
extracted by means of torture, involving the crushing of limbs, the breaking of bones or by applying
boiling water or oil to the body of the accused. Others might have believed themselves to be
witches, or confessed to being a witch because they suffered from delusions which are recognised
today as psychiatric illnesses.

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King James himself was just as fascinated by ideas about witches and witchcraft. In 1590 it was
alleged that a group of witches had plotted to kill him. One of the accused – Agnes Sampson –
claimed during her trial to have sailed out to sea in a sieve whereupon she threw various body parts
of a cat into the sea, casting a spell which would raise a storm so ferocious it would sink the king’s
ship. Shakespeare includes subtle references to this trial in Act 1 scene 3 when the first witch,
speaking of a sailor, proclaims: “In a sieve I’ll thither sail … Though his bark cannot be lost/Yet it
shall be tempest-tossed.” King James would, no doubt, have drawn parallels between this and the
events of his own life because he personally interrogated one of the people accused, a man named
Dr. Fian, before the trial.

So fascinated did he become through his personal involvement in the trial, King James personally
investigated other cases of witchcraft. In fact, in 1597 he published a book called ‘Daemonologie’
(today, we’d spell it Demonology – meaning, ‘the study of demons’) and later, when he became King
of England, he decreed that the book must be printed.

England during the reign of King James I was a deeply religious place. Despite the deep divisions
which existed between Protestants and Catholics, virtually everyone believed in the concept of
Heaven and Hell and they lived in fear of eternal damnation. Jacobean audiences would have been
very familiar with the ‘signs’ to look out for in a person suffering demonic possession. These signs
feature prominently in the play and would have been much more obvious to a Jacobean audience
than to me or you watching the play in the 21st century. The signs are these:

 Trance – “Look how our partner’s rapt” or entranced, says Banquo of Macbeth
 Inability to pray – “Amen/Stuck in my throat,” says Macbeth to his wife
 Visions – “Is this a dagger I see before me?” says Macbeth as he waits to commit regicide
 Invitations to demonic possession – “Come, you spirits” invites Lady Macbeth
Shakespeare presents Macbeth and his wife as damned people who invite, and are seized by,
demonic possession. Perhaps Shakespeare is also subtly reminding Jacobean audiences of the fate
that they, too, can expect if they try to remove their Catholic king, James I, from the throne of
England as people had tried – and failed – to do only a year before the play’s first performance.

Above: a portrait of King James 1, painted in 1611

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 Character Analysis: Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is the deuteragonist (second most significant character) in this drama: the wife of
Macbeth, she shares his lust for power. Our initial impressions of Lady Macbeth are that she is, as
Malcolm describes her at the close of the play as “fiend-like” as, when she learns of Duncan’s visit to
Dunsinane her thoughts turn immediately to regicide. Without pause, she summons evil “spirits”
and commands them to “make thick my blood” so that “no compunctious visitings of Nature”
shake her wicked intention to murder the King.

Interestingly, in this soliloquy Lady Macbeth imagines committing the regicide herself as she asks to
be wrapped in the blackest smoke of Hell “so that my keen knife sees not the wound it makes.”
Later, she privately admits in an aside: “Had he not looked like my father as he slept, I had done’t,”
suggesting that Lady Macbeth is not as “fiend-like” as is sometimes argued. Certainly, she is not
naturally “fiend-like” or she would not have sought assistance from the “murdering ministers” she
conjures when the audience first meet her, even though she willingly submits to their wicked
influence.

It is arguable that Lady Macbeth is subconsciously repelled by the thought of regicide because when
she is pressuring her husband to commit the deed she avoids using the word “murder”; instead she
employs a variety of euphemisms, including: “this enterprise”, Duncan being “provided for” or
merely “it”. However, others argue that Shakespeare’s employment of euphemisms here is quite
deliberate and serves subtly to convey Lady Macbeth’s wily, artful manipulation of her husband and
which, therefore, strengthens the audience impression of her as being truly “fiend-like”.

However, once the regicide is committed and Lady Macbeth becomes Queen, the dynamics of her
relationship with Macbeth undergoes a dramatic transformation. Despite having fulfilled her
ambition to become Queen, in an aside to the audience Lady Macbeth privately admits: “Nought’s
had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content.” Ironically, when her husband then enters
her own face becomes a mask, disguising what is in her heart as she admonishes Macbeth for
entertaining gloomy thoughts which ought to have been buried alongside the body of the dead King
Duncan.

As her ability to influence her husband diminishes – he simply ignores her command to halt his
murderous plans for Banquo when she demands: “You must leave this” – Lady Macbeth becomes an
increasingly isolated figure. After the banquet scene at which Macbeth arouses suspicions by his
erratic behaviour, Lady Macbeth tells him: “You lack the season of all natures – sleep.” Ironically,
the audience’s final impressions of her are in Act 5 scene 1 where she is sleepwalking, burdened by
guilt.

The bold figure who instructed evil spirits to “pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell” is now a
pathetic figure, afraid of the dark. Lady Macbeth’s gentlewoman tells the Doctor observing her
sleepwalk: “She has light by her continually – ‘tis her command.” The evil she so willingly embraced
betrays her – as it betrays Macbeth – and produces only anguish in place of the rewards she had
envisioned. On the night of Duncan’s murder, their hands bathed in Duncan’s blood, she boldly
claimed: “A little water clears us of this deed.” Now, however, she seems unable to rid herself of
the stench and spots of blood she imagines cover her hands still. The Doctor fears she is suicidal and
claims: “more needs she the Divine than the physician.”

Task: Use the information on this page to create a character summary of Lady Macbeth.
Focus on how Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth, how she relates to the context and how an
audience might respond to her.

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 Character analysis: Macbeth

Macbeth is the protagonist in this tragedy: a tragic hero whose hamartia – the fatal flaw in his
character - is his ambition, a lust for power shared by his wife. He is aware of the evil his ambition
gives rise to but he is unable to overcome the temptation.

Often, Lady Macbeth is wrongly accused of inviting Macbeth to contemplate regicide. In fact, after
his encounter with the witches in Act 1 scene 3, Macbeth himself considers regicide when he reflects
on their prophecy and admits:
“If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?”

He is here acknowledging that the thing he is contemplating – usurping King Duncan’s crown - is
“against the use of nature.”

Wracked by doubts, in Act 1 scene 7 as he contemplates the regicide, Macbeth wavers and informs
his wife: “We will proceed no further in this business.” Unlike his wife’s wily, artful avoidance of the
word “murder” during this conversation, it is clear that Macbeth uses a euphemism here because
the very thought of murder frightens him, let alone the deed. Even when criticised and challenged by
Lady Macbeth, he retains the moral sensibility to declare: “I dare do all may become a man. / Who
dares do more is none.”

Having submitted to his wife’s artful persuasion, Macbeth kills Duncan but is immediately plagued by
his conscience. He tells how he “could not say Amen” and of a voice that foretold sleeplessness as
punishment for such a heinous act.

Though Macbeth is influenced by both the witches and his wife, Macbeth is not controlled by them.
His story is one of moral choice and the consequences of that choice. Once Duncan is murdered,
Macbeth withdraws from Lady Macbeth and all subsequent murders in this play are the products of
Macbeth’s own paranoia and desperate desire to cling to power “on this bank and shoal of time”
here on Earth, knowing he has been condemned to an eternity in Hell for killing God’s anointed
representative on Earth.

Having murdered Banquo and Macduff’s family, Macbeth’s paranoia gives way to a more
fundamental disorder. In Act 5 we watch as he prepares to defend his kingdom – reduced to his
castle at Dunsinane – and he swings violently between fits of rage and despair. Evidently, he has lost
any emotional connection to his fellow men, declares that he is “sick at heart” and has “lived long
enough”. When informed of his wife’s death, he is completely unmoved and instead reflects on the
meaningless of life itself. Macbeth is a tragic hero precisely because he does not accept his evil
callously; he suffers for it. In his own words: “To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself.”

Task: Use the information on this page to create a character summary of Macbeth. Focus on
how Shakespeare uses Macbeth, how he relates to the context and how an audience might
respond to him.

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 Character Analysis: Banquo

Banquo might best be described as a minor character in the tragedy of Macbeth.

Nevertheless, he has an important function in the play and is considered by many to
be an effective dramatic foil for Macbeth. It is through Banquo’s interactions with
Macbeth and his own motivations that the audience – through contrast – gain
insights into Macbeth’s nature also.

Alike in many ways, Banquo and Macbeth are equals as the play begins: both are
Scottish “captains” defending Duncan’s realm against the marauding Norweyans led
by Sweno. They fight honourably and are heroic warriors, risking their lives in
defence of Duncan’s kingdom. However, after the battle when they encounter the
“weird sisters” on the “blasted heath”, Banquo’s dramatic function is to
demonstrate to an audience that the temptations of the witches may be successfully
resisted and that Macbeth therefore acts from free will. Banquo expresses
unshakeable moral principles and warns his friend that the witches may well be
“instruments of darkness” who “tell us truths” in order to “win us to our harm” and
to “betray us in deepest consequence.” Banquo’s concern contrasts strikingly with
Macbeth’s own susceptibility to the witches.

Banquo’s resistance to the influence of evil serves to highlight Macbeth’s failure to

resist and foregrounds his tendency towards evil, stimulated by ambition - the flaw
that makes the tragedy possible.

Prompted by paranoid insecurity, when Macbeth decides to murder Banquo he

acknowledges Banquo’s endearing qualities: his “royalty of nature”, his “wisdom”
and his “dauntless” or fearless nature. This resentment of Banquo's natural
superiority, together with jealousy of his destiny as a “father to a line of kings”,
motivates Macbeth to commit further wicked murders in the second half of the play,
commencing with Banquo’s and the attempted murder of his son and heir, Fleance.

Banquo’s fate is determined by his virtue, just as Macbeth’s is determined by his

villainy.

Task: Use the information on this page to create a character summary of Banquo. Focus on
how Shakespeare uses Banquo, how he relates to the context and how an audience might
respond to him.

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 Character Analysis: The Weird Sisters (Witches)

The weird sisters are an unholy trinity, a trio of malevolent, supernatural characters
whose function in the drama is to encourage Macbeth in his evil inclinations.

Though their appearances in the play are brief, they have an important function.
Shakespeare establishes the supernatural theme via their association with disorder
in Nature: they appear amid thunder and lightning in a grim meeting on a “blasted
heath” which contributes greatly to the tone of mysterious evil which pervades the
play.

Likewise, the supernatural world they represent is terrifying to an audience because

it is beyond human control and in the play it is symbolic of the unpredictable force of
human desire, such as Macbeth’s ruthless ambition to become King.

At their first appearance, the weird sisters state an ambiguity that Shakespeare
weaves through the play: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Indeed, the witches’
relationship with Macbeth is so entwined that the first line he speaks in the play is an
echo of this riddle. He says: “So fair and foul a day I have not seen.”

The deceptive pictures of the future – in their initial prediction of Macbeth becoming
King and later in the riddles given by the Apparitions which rise from the cauldron
when Macbeth visits the witches for a second time – encourage in Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth a false sense of what is desirable and possible. The magic of the witches,
then, is their ability to create moral disruption which, in Macbeth’s case, leads to his
death and subsequent damnation.

It is important to remember that while the witches may have “more in them than
mortal knowledge”, they do not control Macbeth. They merely put ideas into his
mind on which he then decides for himself. He is the master of his own destiny and
acts out of free will.

Task: Use the information on this page to create a character summary of the witches. Focus
on how Shakespeare uses the witches, how they relate to the context and how an audience
might respond to them.

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At this point in the play, Banquo and Macbeth have just met the witches. The witches have
just told Macbeth he will one day be the King of Scotland.

BANQUO
Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction 5
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear 10
Your favours nor your hate.
First Witch
Hail!
Second Witch
Hail!
Third Witch
Hail!
First Witch
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. 15
Second Witch
Not so happy, yet much happier.
Third Witch
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
First Witch
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
MACBETH
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: 20
By Sinel's death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? The thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence 25
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
(The Witches vanish)

Q1: Starting with this conversation, explain how far Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a character
who believes in the supernatural power of the witches.
Write about:
 How Shakespeare presents Macbeth’s reaction to the witches here
 How Shakespeare presents his beliefs in them elsewhere in the play.

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Things to read / think / write about:

READ the character analysis of the Witches

 Macbeth’s dramatic reaction to the predictions delivered by the “weird sisters”. It is

so striking that Banquo observes Macbeth’s facial expression and addresses him
directly (see lines 1 – 2).

 Banquo’s remark to the witches about Macbeth being “rapt withal”. Discuss the
significance of this in the context of Macbeth’s belief in the supernatural.

 Shakespeare’s choice of imperative verbs when Macbeth commands the weird

sisters (twice on line 20 and again on line 28).

 The significance of a series of questions addressed directly to the witches and

Shakespeare’s choice of diction in Macbeth’s opinion that the witches possess
“strange intelligence”. What does this series of questions convey to an audience
about Macbeth’s belief in, and attitude towards, the supernatural?

 Consider the use of dramatic irony here, too. The audience is aware that Duncan has
decreed the title Thane of Cawdor is to pass to Macbeth for his bravery in battle. Is
Shakespeare trying to shape the audience’s opinion of belief in the supernatural?

 Consider Macbeth’s aside shortly after the first prediction is realised when Ross
brings news that Duncan has bestowed the title Thane of Cawdor on Macbeth.
In an aside, Macbeth reflects on the encounter and remarks: “This supernatural
soliciting/Cannot be good, cannot be ill.” Discuss the significance of Macbeth’s
uncertainty about the supernatural being good or evil here.

 Contrast this with Banquo’s very different reaction to the witches and the advice he
gives to Macbeth: “And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.”

 Macbeth’s ignorance of Banquo’s advice and later visit to the witches. Explain what
motivates him to visit them and what this conveys to an audience about his belief in
their abilities, given his later bold claim that he bears “a charmed life” which “must
not yield / To one of woman born.”

 The futility and irony of Macbeth’s final comment in the play, to Macduff: “damned
be he who first cries, ‘Hold – enough!’” in the context of having already surrendered
his soul to the devil for committing the act of regicide.

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 PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE: Explore how Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a character who believes
in the supernatural power of the witches.

Explain ONE aspect of

Shakespeare’s presentation of
character / theme / setting

Shakespeare presents … as ….

Provide some evidence in the

form of a quotation or
reference to the text.

(Don’t limit yourself to one

quotation or reference!)

ZOOM IN to the quotation.

(Try to show your

understanding of
Shakespeare’s deliberate use
of language to achieve certain
effects. Use connectives to
develop the layers of your
analysis.)

ZOOM OUT to one or more of

the following, as appropriate:

Link your close analysis to:

 The rest of the play

 A key theme
 Social, historical or
cultural contexts

Conclude:

by linking back to your opening

point, making a deeper
comment about the character
/ theme / setting, based on
your analysis and exploration.

14
Macbeth

Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 5 of Macbeth and then answer the
question that follows.

At this point in the play Lady Macbeth is speaking. She has just received the
news that King Duncan will be spending the night at her castle.

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full 5
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, 10
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 15
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'

Q1: 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. [30 marks]
SPAG [4 marks]

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 Things you might write about:

 The connotations of the “raven” and her use of the adjective “fatal” to describe
Duncan’s entrance to Dunsinane castle. What does it convey about her immediate
thoughts and reactions to Macbeth’s letter?

 Summoning evil spirits. Explain clearly what Lady Macbeth invites the “murdering
ministers” to do to her body and why she requests their assistance.

 The fact she imagines committing the regicide herself in this soliloquy: she refers to
the weapon as “my keen knife”. However, she does not later commit the crime
herself. What reason does she give for not doing so, in an aside to the audience in
Act 2 scene 2, lines 15 – 16? Explain what impressions this private admission
conveys about Lady Macbeth’s character to the audience.

 Think now about Act 3 scene 2, where we first see Lady Macbeth as Queen. In an
aside to the audience at the opening of this scene, explain what feelings she
privately admits to, now that her ambition to be queen has been fulfilled.

 Now think about our final impressions of Lady Macbeth, in Act 5 scene 1. Write
about the significance of having “light by her continually” and how this links to her
desire to be wrapped in “the dunnest smoke of Hell” when first contemplating
Duncan’s murder. Explain also the irony of her constantly rubbing her hands, given
her comment to Macbeth on the night of Duncan’s murder: “A little water clears us
of this deed.”

KEY WORD VOCABULARY: try to use these words in your response. Check spelling of key terms.

soliloquy audience impression initial admission ambitious

fiendish determined callous ironic significant aside

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 PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE: Explain how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman.

Explain ONE aspect of

Shakespeare’s presentation of
character / theme / setting

Shakespeare presents … as ….

Provide some evidence in the

form of a quotation or
reference to the text.

(Don’t limit yourself to one

quotation or reference!)

ZOOM IN to the quotation.

(Try to show your

understanding of
Shakespeare’s deliberate use
of language to achieve certain
effects. Use connectives to
develop the layers of your
analysis.)

ZOOM OUT to one or more of

the following, as appropriate:

Link your close analysis to:

 The rest of the play

 A key theme
 Social, historical or
cultural contexts

Conclude:

by linking back to your opening

point, making a deeper
comment about the character
/ theme / setting, based on
your analysis and exploration.

17
At this point in the play, Macbeth has decided he will not kill King Duncan. He
is just about to share this news with his wife, Lady Macbeth.

MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon. 5
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard 10
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' 15
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then, 20
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.

Q1: Starting with this conversation, explain how far you think Shakespeare
presents Lady Macbeth as the dominant partner in this relationship.

Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth elsewhere in the play. [30 marks]
SPAG [4 marks]

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Things to think and write about:

FIRST – Read the character analysis of Lady Macbeth. Highlight useful points and
consider where you might synthesise them into your response.

 Comment on Lady Macbeth’s violent emotional reaction to Macbeth’s

decision. Comment on Shakespeare’s choice of imagery here, where
Macbeth’s “hope” is personified by Lady Macbeth in a scathing criticism of his
cowardice (see lines 6 to 9).

 Comment on Macbeth’s attempt to assert his dominance in this exchange

(see lines 17 to 19). Is it successful? What is Macbeth’s view of murder here?
How is it different from hers?

 Her use of euphemisms (on lines 21 and 22) to cleverly avoid having to use
the word “murder”, given Macbeth’s announcement in this exchange that he
will not commit the deed. How does this show her dominance in their
relationship?

 Explain how the dynamics of their relationship changes once Macbeth usurps
Duncan’s throne. Consider their disagreement over Macbeth’s plans for
Banquo in Act 3 scene 2. How does Lady Macbeth try to assert her dominance
in that conversation (see Act 3 Scene 2, lines 25 to 40)? Is she successful?

 Our final impressions of her: a pitiable, tragic and troubled woman,

frightened of the “dunnest smoke of Hell” she so willingly asked to be
wrapped in at the beginning of the play.

19
 PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE: Explain how far Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as the dominant
partner in this relationship.

Explain ONE aspect of

Shakespeare’s presentation of
character / theme / setting

Shakespeare presents … as ….

Provide some evidence in the

form of a quotation or
reference to the text.

(Don’t limit yourself to one

quotation or reference!)

ZOOM IN to the quotation.

(Try to show your

understanding of
Shakespeare’s deliberate use
of language to achieve certain
effects. Use connectives to
develop the layers of your
analysis.)

ZOOM OUT to one or more of

the following, as appropriate:

Link your close analysis to:

 The rest of the play

 A key theme
 Social, historical or
cultural contexts

Conclude:

by linking back to your opening

point, making a deeper
comment about the character
/ theme / setting, based on
your analysis and exploration.

20
This is from Act 3 scene 1 of the play. At this point in the play, Macbeth is now
king of Scotland. His friend Banquo expresses his private fears that Macbeth
was involved in the murder of King Duncan.

BANQUO
Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity,
But that myself should be the root and father 5
Of many kings. If there come truth from them--
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine--
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush! no more. 10

Enter MACBETH, as king, LADY MACBETH, as queen, LENNOX,

ROSS, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants

MACBETH
Here's our chief guest.
LADY MACBETH
If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecoming.
MACBETH
To-night we hold a solemn supper sir, 15
And I'll request your presence.
BANQUO
Let your highness
Command upon me; to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
For ever knit. 20

Q1: Starting with this conversation, explain how Shakespeare presents the
relationship between Banquo and Macbeth.
Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents their relationship in this conversation
• how Shakespeare presents the relationship elsewhere in the play.

21
Things to think and write about:

FIRST – Read the character analysis of Banquo. Highlight any useful points.
Think about where and how you might synthesise these points in your response.

 The relationship presented in this extract is one of mutual - but unspoken - mistrust.
Look closely at Banquo’s aside, where he reflects on Macbeth’s recent gains. Explain
what emotion Banquo privately expresses here and what this conveys to the
audience about the reality of their relationship as friends at this point in the play.

 Macbeth’s reference to Banquo as the “chief guest” at the “solemn supper” to be

held later the same evening – an ironic comment given Macbeth’s soliloquy
immediately after this conversation when he admits that his “fears in Banquo stick
deep”, followed by a plot to murder him.

 Explain Banquo’s function in the play. Discuss the qualities that Banquo and
Macbeth have in common. (Look at the first five lines of Macbeth’s soliloquy, Act 3
scene 1 lines 50 to 55, where Macbeth explains what those qualities are!) Explain
why Shakespeare presents these two characters as being so similar in many ways.

 Now, explain the major difference between them and in what way Banquo’s virtue
shapes the audience’s opinion of Macbeth’s vice. You might refer to the way the two
men react differently to the witches and their predictions in Act 1 scene 3 to illustrate
how they are dissimilar in one very significant way.

 You might discuss the significance and the irony of Banquo’s ghost honouring
Macbeth’s request, delivered in this extract: “To-night we hold a solemn supper sir,
/ And I'll request your presence.” Plagued by a guilty conscience, the betrayer is
tormented by the ghost of his innocent victim. None of the guests yet know Banquo
is dead. Ironically, the guests assume that Macbeth is being haunted by the ghost of
someone else, perhaps Duncan. Macbeth’s seemingly bizarre conversation with “a
stool” incriminate him in a murder and so Banquo’s initial suspicion in this extract,
that Macbeth “play’dst most foully” for Duncan’s crown is a suspicion now
entertained by all the guests at this supposedly “solemn supper.”

22
 PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE: Explain how Shakespeare presents the relationship between
Macbeth and Banquo.

Explain ONE aspect of

Shakespeare’s presentation of
character / theme / setting

Shakespeare presents … as ….

Provide some evidence in the

form of a quotation or
reference to the text.

(Don’t limit yourself to one

quotation or reference!)

ZOOM IN to the quotation.

(Try to show your

understanding of
Shakespeare’s deliberate use
of language to achieve certain
effects. Use connectives to
develop the layers of your
analysis.)

ZOOM OUT to one or more of

the following, as appropriate:

Link your close analysis to:

 The rest of the play

 A key theme
 Social, historical or
cultural contexts

Conclude:

by linking back to your opening

point, making a deeper
comment about the character
/ theme / setting, based on
your analysis and exploration.

23