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Macbeth - Entire Play
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Macbeth , set primarily in Scotland, mixes witchcraft, prophecy, and murder. Three “Weïrd Sisters” appear to Macbeth and his comrade Banquo after a battle and prophesy that Macbeth will be king and that the descendants of Banquo will also reign. When Macbeth arrives at his castle, he and Lady Macbeth plot to assassinate King Duncan, soon to be their guest, so that Macbeth can become king.
After Macbeth murders Duncan, the king’s two sons flee, and Macbeth is crowned. Fearing that Banquo’s descendants will, according to the Weïrd Sisters’ predictions, take over the kingdom, Macbeth has Banquo killed. At a royal banquet that evening, Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost appear covered in blood. Macbeth determines to consult the Weïrd Sisters again. They comfort him with ambiguous promises.
Another nobleman, Macduff, rides to England to join Duncan’s older son, Malcolm. Macbeth has Macduff’s wife and children murdered. Malcolm and Macduff lead an army against Macbeth, as Lady Macbeth goes mad and commits suicide.
Macbeth confronts Malcolm’s army, trusting in the Weïrd Sisters’ comforting promises. He learns that the promises are tricks, but continues to fight. Macduff kills Macbeth and Malcolm becomes Scotland’s king.
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Mr Salles Teaches English
Kingship in Macbeth
(a grade 8 essay, improved to grade 9).
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Hi again Mr Salles - I hope you are well,
Here is an essay I have written on the theme of kingship, tyranny and natural order.
If you have a spare few minutes, please let me know what mark this would get and how I can improve it to get full marks :)
Shakespeare cleverly crafts the themes of kingship/tyranny/natural order through the devolution of Macbeth. By contrasting morality and corruption within Macbeth and Banquo, Shakespeare cautions against ambition and associates it with the supernatural - a very disturbing idea for the contemporary audience, contributing to Shakespeare’s overall purpose of trying to flatter King James I and warn the nobility against rebellion.
Shakespeare constructs Banquo as a foil to Macbeth by illustrating their contrasting reactions to the same evil force - the supernatural and temptation. Banquo represents the route that Macbeth chose not to take: the path where ambition does not lead to betrayal and murder. Thus, it is Banquo’s ghost, rather than Duncan’s, that haunts Macbeth and conveys to the contemporary audience that restraint will lead to a fruition of power as Banquo’s lineage stays on the throne for the longest.
The witches’ equivocation: “ Lesser than Macbeth, and greater ” paradoxically suggests the drastic difference between Banquo and Macbeth, foreshadowing character development as the witches' prophecies come true. Banquo will never be king, but he does father a line of kings. Macbeth, on the other hand, will become the King of Scotland which is commendable in terms of the Divine Order; Macbeth’s reign of power will be one of selfishness and greed as he fulfils his cruel desire for power, eliminating all obstacles that stand in the way of his kingship.
As a result, Macbeth holds the shorter end of the stick in this paradox, facing paranoia, insomnia, guilt, and a tragic demise, therefore proving its accuracy. Here, Shakespeare is flattering King James I, as he was descendant of Banquo and Fleance, in order to gain his trust and potentially patronage for his theatre. This also helps Shakespeare later in the play when he subtly warns James I not to be repressive and tyrannical in his rule.
Shakespeare ensures Banquo isn’t perfect as he is tempted on some level by the Witches’ prophecy, but his ability to reject evil is what makes him a moral character and an antithesis to Macbeth. He is less able to resist temptation when he sleeps “ I dream’d of the three weird sisters last night ”, but instead of trying to hide this, he confesses to God and asks for help in remaining moral and virtuous.
This references the Bible as Jesus was tempted three times by the devil and resisted: perhaps Shakespeare is attempting to draw parallels between Banquo and Jesus which would have been largely impactful to a Christian contemporary audience, further warning about the devastating consequences of temptation and tyranny by contrasting this with the holy and biblical ideas associated with resistance to temptation and ambition.
Shakespeare demonstrates how the acquisition of power invokes an irreversible change in character, subverting the audience’s expectations as he implies that a person’s poor qualities are amplified by the crown and personal desire - Macbeth becomes paranoid.
In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is conveyed as the epitome of a loyal and quintessential Scottish soldier when the captain recalls Macbeth’s noble actions as he “ carv’d the passage ” of the traitor Macdonwald. Specifically, the emotive verb “ carv’d ” carries strong connotations of combative expertise and nobility. Alternatively, it could allude to him carving his name famously in the beginning of the play and eventually notoriously at the end of the play, foreshadowing his drastic moral decline. The stark contrast between Macbeth murdering an enemy of the king (which would be seen as an enemy to God due to the Divine Right of Kings believed by the contemporary audience) and when he commits regicide - the ultimate sin.
Shakespeare explores the consequences of usurpation - for the nation it is a nightmare; an illegitimate king can only become a tyrant, using ever greater acts of violence to maintain his rule. However, Shakespeare is careful to emphasise how the tyrant himself suffers at his own hands - violence traumatises the violent person as well as the victims. Macbeth ‘ fixed [Macdonwald’s] head upon our battlements ’. The head is symbolic as a motif of Macbeth’s declining heroism. First he is at his moral peak as he beheads the King’s enemy, effectively God’s enemy in the eyes of the contemporary audience, then after having his moral endurance tested in the form of ‘ supernatural soliciting ’ he goes out to commit regicide, losing all virtue. Finally, Shakespeare uses this motif to highlight the negative consequences to his audience as the ‘head’ foreshadows Macbeth’s later disgrace as his own head becomes described as ‘ the usurper’s cursed head’ that is reminiscent of his previous morality before he was corrupted by ambition and the witches’ prophecies.
Supernatural
Shakespeare forces his audience to question whether the unlawful act of treason has a supernatural urge, whether there are malign witches and demonic forces working against the moral bonds of mankind. Macbeth’s growing inclination towards ‘supernatural soliciting’ leaves him in a perplexed self-questioning state " why hath it given me earnestness of success/commencing in a truth ?” Linguistically, the sibilance of ‘ supernatural soliciting’ is deliberately used by Shakespeare to raise his audience’s alarm, given the satanic connotations and reference to devastating sorcery in the form of ‘soliciting’.
Likewise, Macbeth’s rhetorical question is used by Shakespeare to create a self-doubting, unstable and malevolent fallacy created by the engagement with the ‘agents of the dark’.
This repeated motif of the supernatural was especially significant to a contemporary Christian audience as witches were believed to be women who made a pact with the Devil, but it also would have especially attracted the interests of King James I - Macbeth was first performed to him and his courtiers. James I hated witchcraft and wrote Daemonologie - a book about the supernatural. Here, Shakespeare is flattering the king by incorporating his interests into his play and is also warning the nobility who were unhappy with James as king at the time by suggesting their desire to overthrow James I was manipulated into existence by the supernatural and witches.
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This is a very ambitious title – normally you would have just kingship or tyranny set as the question. And then you are going to make it even more ambitious by introducing the supernatural!
This has led to a very convoluted thesis – having at least 3 ideas is excellent, but it has to make sense. You could simplify this:
Shakespeare contrasts the characters of Macbeth and Banquo to caution against ambition. Unchecked ambition is associated with the supernatural, which allows Shakespeare characterise ambition as inherently evil. Macbeth becomes a tyrannical king because he welcomes “supernatural soliciting.” The focus on the supernatural also contributes to Shakespeare’s overall purpose of trying to flatter King James I and warn the nobility against rebellion.
Notice how I have structured this differently in order to make one point at a time.
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‘Macbeth’ Grade 9 Example Response
Grade 9 – full mark – ‘Macbeth’ response
Starting with this extract (from act 1 scene 7), how does Shakespeare present the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?
In Shakespeare’s eponymous tragedy ‘Macbeth’, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship is a complex portrait of love, illustrating layers of utter devotion alongside overwhelming resentment. Though the couple begins the play unnaturally strong within their marriage, this seems to act as an early warning of their imminent and inevitable fall from grace, ending the play in an almost entirely different relationship than the one they began the play with.
In the exposition of the play, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth initially appear immensely strong within their marriage, with Macbeth describing his wife as ‘my dearest partner of greatness’ in act 1 scene 5. The emotive superlative adjective ‘dearest’ is a term of endearment, and acts as a clear depiction of how valued Lady Macbeth is by her husband. Secondly, the noun ‘partner’ creates a sense of sincere equality which, as equality within marriage would have been unusual in the Jacobean era, illustrates to a contemporary audience the positive aspects of their relationship. Furthermore the lexical choice ‘greatness’ may connote ambition, and as they are ‘partner(s)’, Shakespeare suggests that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are equal in their desire for power and control, further confirming their compatibility but potentially hinting that said compatibility will serve as the couple’s hamartia.
However, the strength of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship falls into a rapid downward spiral in the subsequent scenes, as a struggle for power within the marriage ensues. This is evidenced when Macbeth, in act 1 scene 7, uses the declarative statement ‘we will proceed no further in this business’. Here, Macbeth seems to exude masculinity, embracing his gender role and dictating both his and his wife’s decisions. The negation ‘no’ clearly indicates his alleged definitive attitude. However, Lady Macbeth refuses to accept her husband’s rule, stating ‘when you durst do it, then you were a man’. She attempts to emasculate him to see their plan through. The verb ‘durst’ illustrates the risk taking behaviour that Lady Macbeth is encouraging; implying an element of toxicity within their relationship, and her harsh speech makes the cracks in their relationship further visible to the audience. It is also probable that a contemporary audience would be made severely uncomfortable in the presence of Lady Macbeth’s unapologetic display of power, and it is possible that Shakespeare attempts to paint Lady Macbeth as the villain of the play, playing upon the audience’s pre-determined fears of feminine power. Though Lady Macbeth appears to be acting entirely out of self-interest, another reader may argue that she influences her husband so heavily to commit the heinous act of regicide, as she believes that he crown may as a substitute for the child or children that Shakespeare suggests she and Macbeth have lost previously, and in turn better Macbeth’s life and bring him to the same happiness that came with the child, except in another form.
As the play progresses, Shakespeare creates more and more distance between the characters, portraying the breakdown of their relationship as gradual within the play but rapid in the overall sense of time on stage. For example, Lady Macbeth requests a servant ‘say to the king’ Lady Macbeth ‘would attend his leisure/ for a few words’. Here she is reduced to the status of someone far lesser than the king, having to request to speak to her own husband. It could be interpreted that, now as king, Macbeth holds himself above all else, even his wife, perhaps due to the belief of the divine right of kings. The use of the title rather than his name plainly indicated the lack of closeness Lady Macbeth now feels with Macbeth and intensely emotionally separates them. This same idea is referenced as Shakespeare develops the characters to almost juxtapose each other in their experiences after the murder of Duncan. For example, Macbeth seems to be trapped in a permanent day, after ‘Macbeth does murder sleep’ and his guilt and paranoia render him unable to rest. In contrast, Lady Macbeth takes on an oppositional path, suffering sleepwalking and unable to wake from her nightmare; repeating the phrase ‘to bed. To bed’ as if trapped in a never-ending night. This illustrates to the audience the extreme transformation Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship undergoes, and how differently they end up experiencing the aftermath of regicide.
In conclusion, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin the play almost too comfortable within their marriage, which seems to invite the presence of chaos and tragedy into their relationship. Their moral compositions are opposing one another, which leads to the distancing and total breakdown of their once successful marriage and thus serves as a warning to the audience about the effects of murder, and what the deadly sin of greed can do to a person and a marriage.
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Secondary English teacher in Herts. View all posts by gcseenglishwithmisshuttlestone
9 thoughts on “‘Macbeth’ Grade 9 Example Response”
wheres the context
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It is also probable that a contemporary audience would be made severely uncomfortable in the presence of Lady Macbeth’s unapologetic display of power, and it is possible that Shakespeare attempts to paint Lady Macbeth as the villain of the play, playing upon the audience’s pre-determined fears of feminine power.
Also ref to ‘divine right of kings’
Thank you! This is a brilliant response. Just what I needed. Could you also please include the extract in the question.
We will proceed no further in this business. He hath honored 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.
—> until end of scene
She did (Act 1 Scene 7)
Another great resource for grade 9 Macbeth analysis https://youtu.be/bGzLDRX71bs
In order to get a grade 9 for a piece like this would you need to include a wide range of vocabulary or could you write the same thing ‘dumbed down’ and get a 9.
If the ideas were as strong then yes, but your writing must AT LEAST be ‘clear’ for a grade 6 or above.
This is really great, I’m in Year 10 doing my Mock on Thursday, a great point that i have found (because I also take history) Is the depiction of women throughout the play, during the Elizabethan era, (before the Jacobean era) many people had a changed view of women as Queen Elizabeth was such a powerful woman, glimpses of this have been shown in Jacobean plays, in this case Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is depicted as powerful although she had to be killed of to please King James (as he was a misogynist) women are also depicted as evil in the play, such as the three witches, I also found that the Witches are in three which could be a mockery to the Holy Trinity.
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the historic reasons which Macbeth could plead for his as-sassination of Duncan. Duncan's government was a weak one, nor could his military ability compare favorably with that of his cousin. But more important is the fact that Macbeth makes no mention of the family murders Macbeth could have avenged.3 Duncan's ancestor, Malcolm II, was ...
the audience of Macbeth's statement when he was well and worried that "Blood will have blood" implying that once the murderorus journey started it would only get worse. Lady Macbeth is also a direct juxtaposition to the character of Lady Macduff which is shown when Lady Macduff talks to her children.
ELEMENTS IN MACBETH Thesis Approved: 997230 ii . PREFACE This study examines Macbeth, considered by critics to be a most profound and complete vision of evil, from several postures. The struc ... that Macbeth, the man, as represented in Macbeth, the play, is a human being, and subject to human weaknesses, while subjected to forces out ...
Quick answer: A good thesis for an essay on Macbeth could focus on a variety of themes present in the play, such as the consequences of excessive ambition, the effects of guilt, the role of fate ...
This thesis will consider how sleeplessness functions in Macbeth. Many consider Macbeth's sleeplessness to be the product of his guilty conscience after he murders Duncan for the throne. While a case can be made for that argument, readings of the play that focus exclusively on Macbeth's personal sleeplessness overlook the fact that
Sterility takes away from a man's manhood and weakens his self- image and if fatherhood is ―the crown of manhood‖ (Kahn 175), Macbeth's crown is fruitless because he has no heirs. According to Kahn, all Macbeth breeds is. murders in contrast to his rivals, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff and Siward who are fruitful and have.
Shakespeare's famous tragedy Macbeth details the downfall of a once powerful, noble Scottish general. The plight of protagonist Macbeth is shown through the play, as his own desires combine with external influences to cause his undoing. Along this path, much death and destruction occurs. These are directly caused by Macbeth's own ambition ...
This thesis explores the typically cited character flaws of Macbeth and Hamlet and asserts that these flaws are not the main cause of their tragic downfalls, but, rather, it is the immense psychological and corporeal stresses created by the inexorable progression of time on the chief characters of Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth and Hamlet,
Macbeth, written by playwright William Shakespeare, is a tragedy that takes the audience into the realities of a weak human mind. Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, is prophesied to soon. become to the Thane of Cawdor and eventually the King of Scotland by the three ominous Weird. Sisters.
In this paper, I will provide a brief context of Macbeth in terms of contemporary issues about sovereignty. I will closely examine the role of women in Macbeth, precisely Lady Macbeth, in Macbeth‟s downfall, particularly focusing on how and why Lady Macbeth is an unsettling and disruptive force to the order of the sovereignty.
Doctoraatsjabloon. Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. Caroline Van Thienen. The Use of Madness in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Macbeth. A Study of Disorder as Dramatised in the Shakespearean Plays. Masterthesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of "Master in de taal- en letterkunde Engels".
Abstract. This paper aims to describe the ambition of a king's servant in Shakespeare's, 'Macbeth'. Because of three witches (astrologer) advice which said that if he wants to be a king later ...
Macbeth Thesis - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. The document discusses the challenges students face in writing a thesis on Shakespeare's play Macbeth. It notes that crafting a Macbeth thesis requires a deep understanding of the play's complex characters, plotlines, themes, and language. Many students struggle to analyze these intricacies and ...
Malcolm and Macduff lead an army against Macbeth, as Lady Macbeth goes mad and commits suicide. Macbeth confronts Malcolm's army, trusting in the Weïrd Sisters' comforting promises. He learns that the promises are tricks, but continues to fight. Macduff kills Macbeth and Malcolm becomes Scotland's king. p. 7.
macbeth thesis - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This document is a thesis paper about William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth". It discusses how Shakespeare incorporates death throughout the play through several key murders. Specifically, it summarizes that Shakespeare infuses death through the murders of Banquo, Macduff's ...
macbeth thesis - Free download as Word Doc (.doc / .docx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing site.
model, Macbeth is a psychopathological tragedy that refers to the conflict between humanism and. counter-humanism. The c onflict is between reaso n and evil, ethics and darkness, and as such ...
Thesis: Shakespeare cleverly crafts the themes of kingship/tyranny/natural order through the devolution of Macbeth. By contrasting morality and corruption within Macbeth and Banquo, Shakespeare cautions against ambition and associates it with the supernatural - a very disturbing idea for the contemporary audience, contributing to Shakespeare's overall purpose of trying to flatter King James ...
Macbeth we were introduced to at the start of the play. From this point on, the audience are able to see the direct contrast between the way Duncan and Macbeth rule Britain. Macbeth is the least successful king in the play. Even his ascension to the throne is unrighteous , as he gets there on the back of murder, lies, and betrayal.
eisenreichmacbeththesispaper - Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. This paper analyzes how Shakespeare depicts mental deterioration in Macbeth. It discusses three ways this is shown: through corruption as Macbeth's greed and ambition grow following the witches' prophecy; through paranoia as Macbeth becomes worried about maintaining his power after ...
Act 1, scene 4 - Macbeth is respected at the start worthiest cousin Act 1, scene 5 - When Lady Macbeth reads the letter, she says Macbeth is too full o the milk of human kindness. To help him become King Act 1, scene 7 - Duncan is compared to a heavenly status: Macbeth says to himself that the king ZHath borne his faculties so meek (makes
Macbeth doth come. ALL The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about: Thrice to thine and thrice to mine And thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! the charm's wound up. Enter MACBETH and BANQUO MACBETH So foul and fair a day I have not seen. BANQUO How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
For example, Macbeth seems to be trapped in a permanent day, after 'Macbeth does murder sleep' and his guilt and paranoia render him unable to rest. In contrast, Lady Macbeth takes on an oppositional path, suffering sleepwalking and unable to wake from her nightmare; repeating the phrase 'to bed. To bed' as if trapped in a never-ending ...