Analysing Macbeth Mini extracts ACT 1 Act 1

Analysing Macbeth Mini extracts

ACT 1

Act 1 – scene 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a sense of unease? Consider: - short sentences - rhythm - alliteration/fricative of ‘f’ - paradox FIRST WITCH: Where the place? SECOND WITCH: Upon the heath. THIRD WITCH: There to meet with Macbeth. FIRST WITCH: I come, Graymalkin! SECOND WITCH: THIRD WITCH: ALL: Paddock calls. Anon. Fair is foul, and foul is fair Hover through the fog and filthy air. Key words Heath = wild, grassy land without many trees Anon = soon

Act 1 – scene 1 FIRST WITCH: Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a sense of unease? Consider: - short sentences - rhythm - alliteration/fricative of ‘f’ - paradox Where the place? SECOND WITCH: Upon the heath. THIRD WITCH: There to meet with Macbeth. FIRST WITCH: I come, Graymalkin! SECOND WITCH: THIRD WITCH: ALL: Paddock calls. Anon. Fair is foul, and foul is fair Hover through the fog and filthy air. Shakespeare uses short sentences to create a sense of unease and chaos about the witches, with all 3 speaking straight after each other. The final lines contain alliteration and fricatives, used by Shakespeare to create a flowing almost chant like feeling to what’s being said. This would create a very unsettling feeling for the audience, and the paradox contained within the line confuses them and makes them think things may not be what they seem.

Act 1 – Sc 2 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a sense of excitement? § Captain: And fortune on his damned quarrel smiling, Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak, For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name - Consider: Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel - Caesura - Sound imagery (alliteration, Which smoked with bloody execution, plosives) - Word choices - superlatives Key words: Disdaining = showing contempt = looking down on someone/something as though it’s not worthy of your attention Brandished = waving around

Act 1 – Sc 2 § Captain: And fortune on his damned quarrel smiling, Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a sense of excitement? Consider: - Caesura - Sound imagery (alliteration, Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak, For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel Which smoked with bloody execution, plosives) - Word choices - superlatives The Captain presents Macbeth as a very brave warrior. The extract has a sense of excitement about it with the use of the words ‘brandished steel’ and ‘bloody execution’. The plosive and alliterative ‘b’ emphasise the sense of action. The caesura highlights the bravery of Macbeth because of the shift in tone and the interruption to describing Macdonald’s tyranny, and the use of the word ‘all’ suggests Macbeth has no match.

Act 1: Sc 4 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to enhance theme that appearances can be deceptive? Consider: - metaphor - rhythm Macbeth Stars, hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires

Act 1 – scene 5 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create an unsettling mood? Consider: - imagery of raven - sound imagery – plosives - caesura - specific word choice LADY MACBETH 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

Act 1 – scene 5 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a MENACING mood? LADY MACBETH And fill me from the crown to the topfull Of the direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Consider: - sound imagery – plosives - specific word choices Stop up th’access and passage to remorse That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake fell my purpose

Act 1 – scene 5 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a FOREBODING mood? Consider: - structural similarity with witches - specific word choices - fricative Foreboding = future misfortune/evil Lady Macbeth Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor, Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter, Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.

Act 1 – scene 5 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a mood of deceit? Consider: - simile - metaphor - rule of 3 - assonance Lady Macbeth To beguile the time, Look like the time, bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.

Act 1 – scene 6 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create an ironic mood? Consider: Duncan This castle has a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. - sibilance - word choices - dramatic irony Seat = position, location Nimbly = quick to understand

Act 1 – scene 7 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a mood of hesitation? Consider: - word choices - plosives - caesura Macbeth But in these cases, We still have judgement here that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice To our own lips.

Act 1 – scene 7 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to enhance Duncan’s qualities? Consider: - word choices - simile - alliteration contrast Macbeth Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against The deep damnation of his taking-off. Borne = grown and presented Faculties = temperament/ personality Meek = gentle Virtues = qualities Plead = appeal with earnest (sincerity) Damnation = condemn, declaring something to be bad

Act 1 – scene 7 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight Lady Macbeth’s manipulation? Consider: - rhetorical questions - caesura - plosives Lady Macbeth Was the hope drunk Wherin you dressed 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.

Act 1 – scene 7 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight Lady Macbeth’s cunning nature? Consider: Lady Macbeth When in swinish sleep Their drenched natures lies as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon Th’unguarded Duncan? - alliteration - sibilance - word choice Swinish – like a pig Drenched natures – their minds are soaked with alcohol Cunning = planning in a deceitful way

ACT 2

Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight Banquo’s apprehension? Consider: - Metaphor - Simile - Word choice - Punctuation (dashes) Apprehension = worry Act 2 – Sc 1 Banquo Hold, take my sword – There’s husbandry in heaven, There candles are all out. – Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet, I would not sleep Husbandry = thrift, economical, careful abut how much used Summons = message or call to do something

Act 2 – Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight Macbeth’s turmoil? Macbeth I see thee still Consider: - Sound imagery - Alliteration and plosives - Caesura - Punctuation And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There’s no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes. Dudgeon = handle Gouts = large drops Turmoil = confusion

Act 2 – Sc 2 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight Lady Macbeth’s assertive nature? Consider: - Metaphor - Caesura - Short sentence - Imperative Lady Macbeth My hands are of your colour, but I shame To wear a heart so white. Knock within I hear a knocking At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber; A little water clears us of this deed. How easy it is then!

Act 2 – Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the eerireness of the night? Consider: - Word choices - Metaphors - Plosives - Pathetic fallacy Lennox The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down, and as they say, Lamentings heard i’th’air, strange screams of death And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion and confused events, New hatched to th’woeful time. Unruly = disruptive, lawless Lamentings = regrets Dire combustion = terrible fires

Act 2 – Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the panic and disbelief in Macduff? Consider: - Epizeuxis - Personification - Metaphor - Hyperbole Macduff: O horror, Tongue nor heart cannot conceive, nor name thee. Macbeth & Lennox: What’s the matter? Macduff: Confusion hath now made his masterpiece: Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord’s anointed temple and stole thence The life of the building. Sacrilegious = violation of something sacred Ope = open Anointed = blessed

Act 2 – Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the contrast between Lady Macbeth and Macduff? Lady Macbeth: What’s the business That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak. Consider: Macduff: O gentle lady, ‘Tis not for you to hear what I can speak. - Sibilance - Long sentence - Isocolon - Irony - Alliteration The repetition in a woman’s ear Would murder as it fell. – enter Banquo O Banquo, Banquo Our royal master’s murdered. Parley = talk with

Act 2 – Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the deceit of Macbeth? Macbeth: O, yet I do repent me of my fury That I did kill them. Consider: - Poetic voice - Listing - Exaggeration Macduff: Macbeth: Wherefore did you so? Who can be wise, amazed, temperate, and furious, Loyal and neutral in a moment? No man. Th’expedition of my violent love Outran the pauser, reason. Repent =feel sorry for Wherefore = why Temperate = calm, sensible Expedition = haste, quickness Pauser = the thing that delays

Act 2 – Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the deceit of Macbeth? Consider: - Poetic voice - Sibilance - Hyperbole Macbeth: Here lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature, For ruin’s wasteful entrance. Breech in nature = destroyed natural cycle

Act 2 – Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the danger Malcolm and Donaldbain are in? Consider: - Metaphor - Repetition (isocolon) Donaldbain: Where we are, There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the ner’er in blood, The nearer bloody.

Act 2 – Sc 4 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to highlight the mood in Scotland? Ross: Consider: - Pathetic fallacy - Metaphors By th’clock ‘tis day And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. Is’t night’s predominance, or day’s shame, That darkness does the face of the earth entomb When all living light should kiss it? Travelling lamp = the sun The day’s shame = Duncan’s murder Entomb = place in a tomb (burial chamber)

ACT 3

Act 3 – Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to keep Banquo as a moral frame of reference? Consider: - Contrast - Caesura Banquo: 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. Verities = truths

Act 3 – Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to show us Macbeth’s annoyance? Macbeth: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown Consider: - Metaphor - word choice And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. Sceptre = royal walking stick Gripe = grasp Wrenched = removed forcefully Unlineal = no future generations

Act 3 – Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to show us Macbeth’s state of mind? Consider: - Word choice - Metaphor Macbeth: For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind: For them, the gracious Duncan have I murdered, Put rancours in the vessel of my peace Filed = defiled, tainted, destroyed Rancours = bitterness Vessel of my peace = the mind

Act 3 – Sc 2 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to illustrate Macbeth’s dark intentions? Consider: - Caesura - Personification - Word Choice - Metaphor Macbeth: Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Seeling = blinding The bond keeping him pale is that Banquo still lives

Act 3: Sc 4 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to enhance the humiliation of Macbeth ? Consider: - Caesura - Plosive - Alliteration of w - Imperative LADY MACBETH       O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear. This is the air-drawn dagger which you said Led you to Duncan. Oh, these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would well become A woman’s story at a winter’s fire, Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all’s done, You look but on a stool.

Act 3: Sc 4 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to create a mood of intensity? MACBETH I will tomorrow— And betimes I will—to the weird sisters. Consider: - Caesura - Superlatives - Imagery - Punctuation More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way. I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Act 3: Sc 6 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise that appearances can be deceptive? Consider: - Word choice - Repetition - Sarcasm - Alliteration - Caesura Lennox The gracious Duncan Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead. And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late, Whom you may say, if’t please you, Flenace killed, For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late. Who cannot want the thought how monstrous It was for Malcolm and for Donaldbain To kill their gracious father.

ACT 4

Act 4: Sc 1 MACBETH Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise the extent of the witches nastiness? Consider: - anaphora - word choice I conjure you by that which you profess, Howe'er you come to know it, answer me. Though you untie the winds and let them fight Against the churches, though the yeasty waves Confound and swallow navigation up, Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down, Though castles topple on their warders' heads, Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure Of nature’s germens tumble all together, Even till destruction sicken, answer me To what I ask you.

Act 4: Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise the distorted nature of Macbeth’s ambition? Consider: - caesura - allusion - word choice - personification MACBETH Then live, Macduff. What need I fear of thee? But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, And take a bond of fate. Thou shalt not live, That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, And sleep in spite of thunder.

Act 4: Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise the distorted nature of Macbeth’s ambition? Consider: - caesura - isocolon - listing - short sentence - rhyming couplet MACBETH From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to th' edge o' th' sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool. This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool.

Act 4: Sc 2 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise the frustration of Lady Macduff? Consider: - imperative - isocolon - metaphor - contrast - tricolon LADY MACDUFF Wisdom! To leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion and his titles in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not; He wants the natural touch. For the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. All is the fear and nothing is the love, As little is the wisdom, where the flight So runs against all reason. He wants the natural touch = lacks feeling for his family Diminutive = small and gentle

Act 4: Sc 2 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise the violence of the scene? Consider: - imperative - dialogue - stage directions - word choice - structure – plot design FIRST MURDERER: Where is your husband? LADY MACDUFF: I hope, in no place so unsanctified Where such as thou mayst find him. FIRST MURDERER:       SON: He’s a traitor. Thou liest, thou shag-haired villain! FIRST MURDERER:      (Stabbing him) What, you egg! Young fry of treachery SON : He has killed me, mother. Run away, I pray you! Unsanctified – unholy Treachery = perfidy (almost kills him)

Act 4: Sc 3 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise Malcolm’s sadness at the state of the Scotland? MALCOLM Consider: I speak not as in absolute fear of you. - metaphor - personificaiton I think our country sinks beneath the yoke. It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash Is added to her wounds. yoke = slavery

ACT 5

Act 5: Sc 1 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise Lady Macbeth’s state of mind? Consider: - USE OF PROSE - diacope - sentence structure - punctuation LADY MACBETH Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? —Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

Act 5: Sc 5 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise Macbeth’s false sense of security? MACBETH Consider: Hang out our banners on the outward walls. - sound imagery - personification - alliteration The cry is still “They come!” Our castle’s strength Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up.

Act 5: Sc 5 Using the extract, how does Shakespeare use language to emphasise Macbeth’s false sense of security? Consider: - caesura - metaphor - alliteration - partial onomatopoeia (struts) Macbeth And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 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.