The purpose of blood imagery:

• Contributes to the horror of the play
• Represents guilt felt by major characters
• Acts as a metaphor for the chaos within Scotland
• Represents the notion of loyal self-sacrifice

Macbeth is a very bloody play. Shakespeare’s bloody imagery, including the vision of blood-spattered characters, enables him to create an atmosphere of horror and violence. Blood also symbolises guilt within the play. Towards the end of the play, the blood-soaked imagery conveys the idea of Scotland suffering under the tyranny of Macbeth’s rule.

The violence of the world of Macbeth is established with the entrance of the bleeding captain (Act 1 Scene 2). We soon hear of Macbeth’s gory action in the battle: how his sword “smoked with bloody execution” as he “carved out his passage” through enemy soldiers. When Macbeth finally reaches Macdonwald, he “unseamed him from the nave to the chaps / and fixed his head upon [the] battlements.’ The characters’ admiration of such violence clearly establishes Scotland at this time as a violent and bloody place.

(More to come as we move on to each scene…)

 

Tragedy is a form of drama that deals with human suffering. Generally speaking, tragedy portrays a hero who flourishes at the beginning of story, but then, because of a tragic act, faces a reversal of fortune. The tragic hero encounters great suffering and hardship in the drama but because of this develops greater awareness about himself or the world. A tragedy often concludes with the hero’s demise.

Macbeth can be understood as the typical tragedy as it contains the following tragic elements:

• Hero has high social status and potential for greatness
• Hero has a tragic flaw
• Hero commits a tragic act
• Hero experiences a reversal of fortune
• Hero gains wisdom
• Hero inspires pity and excites fear

 

2007

‘The relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth undergoes significant change during the course of the play.’ Discuss this statement, supporting your answer by suitable reference to the text.

or

‘Essentially the play ‘Macbeth’ is about power, its uses and abuses.’ Discuss this view of the play, supporting your answer with the aid of suitable reference to the text.

 

2004

‘Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ invites us to look into the world of a man driven on by ruthless ambition and tortured by regret.’ Write a response to this view of the play ‘Macbeth’, supporting the points you make by reference to the text.

or

‘The play ‘Macbeth’ has many scenes of compelling drama.’ Choose one scene that you found compelling and say why you found it to be so. Support your answer by reference to the play.

 

2003

‘We feel very little pity for the central characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play.’ To what extent would you agree with the above view? Support your answer by reference to the play.

or

‘In Macbeth, Shakespeare presents us with a powerful vision of evil.’ Write your response to the above statement. Textual support may include reference to a particular performance of the play you have seen.

 

1995

Discuss the course and nature of the resistance to Macbeth’s rule in the play. Support your answer by relevant quotation or reference to the play.

or

‘Kingship, with all its potential for good or evil, is a major theme of the play ‘Macbeth’.’ Discuss this view, supporting your answer with quotation from or reference to the play.

 

1991

‘The eternal struggle between good and evil – a struggle in which evil comes very close to victory – is the central them of the play ‘Macbeth’.’ Discuss this view and show how the struggle is illustrated in the imagery of the play. Support your answer by reference or quotation.

or

‘While there are redeeming features in the character of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a ruthless opportunist whose ambition for her husband supersedes all moral considerations.’ Discuss this view, supporting your answer by reference or quotation.

 

1987

‘The Banquo Macbeth has killed is not the innocent soldier who met the witches and scorned their prophecies, nor the man who prayed to be delivered from temptation. He is a man whose principles have been deeply compromised.’ Discuss this view, supporting your answer by quotation or reference.

or

Discuss the way in which the language of the play ‘Macbeth’ contributes to the creation of the atmosphere of evil and violence which pervades the play. Support your answer by relevant quotation or reference.

 

1983

‘The witches in ‘Macbeth’ are malevolent creatures, who originate deeds of blood and have power over the soul.’ Discuss the role of the witches in the play in the light of this statement. Support your answer with appropriate reference or quotation.

or

Discuss the way in which light/darkness, violent imagery and unnatural happenings are used in ‘Macbeth’ to create atmosphere. Support your answer with appropriate quotation or reference.

 

1979

‘Their partnership in guilt, which at the beginning of the play is a strong bond between them, gradually drives Macbeth and his wife apart, until they go down to their separate dooms, isolated and alone.’ Discuss this view, with the aid of suitable quotation or reference.

or

‘Lady Macbeth is no monster. She is a loyal (though misguided) wife, not without tenderness and not without conscience.’ What do you think of this estimation of Lady Macbeth? Support your answer with relevant quotation or reference.

 

1975

‘In ‘Macbeth’ Shakespeare does not present Macbeth as a mere villain, but succeeds in arousing some measure of sympathy for him.’ Discuss the character of Macbeth in the light of this statement, supporting your answer by relevant quotation or reference.

or

‘In ‘Macbeth’ the inner self is conveyed, not through the ideas expressed, nor through the actions performed, but by means of an elaborate pattern of imagery and symbolism.’ Test the truth of this statement by considering any two of the play’s central characters and the images and symbols associated with them. Support your answer by relevant quotation or reference.

 

1971

‘In the play ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare had heightened our experience of wickedness and disorder by setting them against a background of goodness and order.’ Discuss this view with the aid of appropriate reference or quotation.

or

Discuss the view that Lady Macbeth has more in common with the Witches than with Lady Macduff. Support your answer with suitable reference or quotation.

 

‘Macbeth’ – thrilling, shocking, exciting, frightening. It would be difficult to find a
play more dramatic! Murder, war, witches, hallucinations, ghosts, sleep walking  and even a touch of humour just for balance. The dramatic elements draw us in and compel us to engage with this play on many levels.

 

The whole play is full of these dramatic elements, but even just examining one scene will provide a wealth of examples.

 

Take, for example, Act 2 Scene 3 – often referred to as the Porter Scene. What makes this scene compelling and dramatic?

 

This scene opens to the sound effect of someone incessantly banging on the door and so we are left asking the question Who is arriving at Macbeth’s castle? Dramatic technique – suspense. The Porter trudges across the stage, slowed by the
effects of the previous night’s revelries, thus adding to the suspense.

 

The next element of drama to be found in this scene is humour – the only humour in an otherwise dark play. The Porter has a very particular type of humour that would have been enjoyed by a Shakespearean audience – bawdy humour. Remember that in an exam, you should follow the structure of Point, Quote, Explain. A humorous
quotation here is the Porter’s description of what alcohol ‘provokes’:

‘Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and it unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery; it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.’

 

The humour dissipates quickly, however, with the arrival on stage of Macbeth. Lennox highlights the drama of the fact that nature has already gone into turmoil, flux and chaos:

‘The night has been unruly: where we lay,

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

Lamentings heard i’ the air; strange screams of death,

And prophesying with accents terrible

Of dire combustion and confus’d events

New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird

Clamour’d the livelong night: some say the earth

Was feverous and did shake.’

This is an example of pathetic fallacy – the weather / natural world reflects events that occur in the play. How dramatic is it when ‘strange screams of death’ can be heard on the wind at night?

 

Perhaps the most dramatic moment comes with Macduff’s discovery of Duncan’s body. He is so appalled by this abhorrent act that he cannot even form the words to describe what he has just seen:

‘O horror! Horror! Horror! Tongue nor heart

Cannot conceive nor name thee.’

He goes on to say:

‘Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o’ the building!’

Here we can see how the murder of Duncan is not just a crime against man but also a crime against God. It will have catastrophic effects. The drama of this scene is enhanced when Macduff says:

‘Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight

With a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;

See, and then speak yourselves.’

 

The scene continues with dramatic irony – Lady Macbeth, who only moments earlier washed the blood of Duncan from her hands, now must ‘look like the innocent flower’. Both she and Macbeth must feign shock, sorrow and moral outrage. Macbeth commits two further murders and asks:

‘who could refrain,

That had a heart to love, and in that heart

Courage to make his love known?’

The lady even goes so far as to faint! Is this for the sake of appearance or has she begun to feel regret for her actions? That is left up to the audience to decide. However, there is no ambiguity in the fact that this is yet another dramatic moment in this highly dramatic scene.

 

The scene ends with the dramatic exit of Malcolm and Donalbain – they furtively discuss together what their best option is and they agree that it is to run. They know that no one is to be trusted because ‘There’s daggers in men’s smiles’. There is no safety for them in Scotland.

Again, make sure you know and understand each of these.

 

Banquo – Fleance

‘A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,

And yet I would not sleep.’

 

Banquo – Macbeth

‘I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:

To you they have show’d some truth.’

 

Macbeth – Banquo

‘I think not of them’

 

Macbeth – soliloquy

‘Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

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?’

 

Lady Macbeth – soliloquy

‘That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,

What hath quench’d them hath given me fire.’

 

Lady Macbeth – soliloquy

‘Alack! I am afraid they have awak’d,

And ’tis not done; the attempt and not the deed

Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;

He could not miss them. Had he not resembled

My father as he slept I had done’t. My husband!’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘I have done the deed.’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’?

I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’

Stuck in my throat.’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘These deeds must not be thought

After these ways; so, it will make us mad.’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘Why, worthy thane,

You do unbend your noble strength to think

So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,

And wash this filthy witness from your hand.

Why did you bring these daggers from the place?

They must lie there: go carry them, and smear

The sleepy grooms with blood.’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘I’ll go no more:

I am afraid to think what I have done;

Look on’t again I dare not.’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead

Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood

That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,

I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal;

For it must seem their guilt.’

 

Macbeth – soliloquy

‘Whence is that knocking?

How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?

What hands are here! Ha! They pluck out mine eyes.

Will all Neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘My hands are of your colour, but I shame

To wear a heart so white.

I hear a knocking

At the sout entry; retire we to our chamber;

A little water clears us of this deed;

How easy is it, then! Your constancy

Hath left you unattended.’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!’

 

Lennox – Macbeth

‘The night has been unruly: where we lay,

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

Lamentings heard i’ the air; strange screams of death,

And prophesying with accents terrible

Of dire combustion and confus’d events

New hatch’d to the woeful time. The obscure bird

Clamour’d the livelong night: some say the earth

Was feverous and did shake.’

 

Macduff – Macbeth and Lennox

‘O horror! Horror! Horror! Tongue nor heart

Cannot conceive nor name thee!’

 

Macduff – Macbeth and Lennox

‘Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o’ the building!’

 

Macduff – Lady Macbeth

‘O gentle lady!

‘Tis not for you to hear what I can speak;

The repetition in a woman’s ear

Would murder as it fell.’

 

Macbeth – Macduff and Lennox

‘Had I but died an hour before this chance

I had liv’e a blessed time; for, from this instant,

There’s nothing serious in mortality,

All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,

The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees

Is left this vault to brag of.’

 

Macbeth – Macduff and Lennox

‘O! Yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.’

 

Donalbain – Malcolm

‘Our separated fortune

Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,

There’s daggers in men’s smiles: the near in blood,

The nearer bloody.’

 

Malcolm – Donalbain

‘This murderous shaft that’s shot

Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way

Is to avoid the aim: therefore, to horse;

And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,

But shift away: there’s warrant in that theft

Which steals itself when there’s no mercy left.’

 

Old Man – Ross

‘Threescore and ten I can remember well;

Within the volume of which time I have seen

Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night

Hath trifled former knowings.’

 

Old Man – Ross

‘Tis unnatural,

Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last,

A falcoln, towering in her pride of place

Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.’

 

Ross – Old Man

‘And Duncan’s horses – a thing most strange and certain –

Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,

Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,

Contending ‘gainst  obedience, as they would

Make war with mankind.’

 

Old Man – Ross

‘Tis said they eat each other.’

 

Macduff – Ross

‘Malcolm and Donalbain, the king’s two sons,

Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them

Suspicion of the deed.’

 

Ross – Macduff

‘Gainst nature still!

Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up

Thine own life’s means! Then ’tis most like

The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.’

 

Macduff – Ross

‘He is already nam’d, and gone to Scone

To be invested.’

 

Macduff – Ross

‘Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!

Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!’

 

Be sure that you know and understand each of these quotations.

 

First Witch – Second and Third Witch

‘When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’

 

All three witches

‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair’

 

Sergeant – Duncan

‘but all’s too weak;

For brave Macbeth, – well he deserves that name, –

Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel,

Which smok’d with bloody execution,

Like valour’s minion carv’d out his passage

Till he fac’d the slave.’

 

Ross – Duncan

‘Assisted by that most disloyal traitor,

The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;

Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in proof,

Confronted him with self-comparisons’

 

Duncan – Ross

‘No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.’

 

Macbeth – Banquo

‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’

 

Banquo – Macbeth

‘And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths’

 

Macbeth – aside

‘This supernatural soliciting

Cannot be ill, cannot be good. . .

. . . and nothing is

But what is not.’

 

Macbeth – Banquo

‘At more time,

The interim having weigh’d it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.’

 

Duncan – Malcom

‘There’s no art

To find the mind’s construction in the face.’

 

Duncan – court

‘We will establish our estate upon

Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter

The Prince of Cumberland.’

 

Macbeth – aside

‘The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap,

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!

Let not light see my black and deep desires’

 

Lady Macbeth – soliloquy

Yet I do fear thy nature;

It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way; thou wouldst be great,

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it.’

 

Lady Macbeth – soliloquy

‘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

Of direst cruelty.’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘Look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under’t.’

 

Duncan – Lady Macbeth

‘Fair and noble hostess,

We are your guest tonight.’

 

Macbeth – soliloquy

‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

It were done quickly; if the assassination

Could tramme up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease success; that but this blow

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

. . . I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself

And falls on the other.’

 

Macbeth – Lady 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.’

 

Lady Macbeth – 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? . . .

. . . Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’,

Like the poor cat i’ the adage?’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘I dare do all that may become a man;

Who dares do more is none.’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘I have given suck, and know

How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.’

 

Lady Macbeth – Macbeth

‘But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

And we’ll not fail.’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘Bring forth men-children only;

For thy undaunted mettle should compose

Nothing but males.’

 

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth

‘I am settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.’

5th years,

Don’t forget to bring  in your money for going to see ‘Macbeth’ in The Helix in February!!