Below are a series of essay questions, with opening paragraphs and some suggestions as to what you could write about for the rest of the essay. These are not set in stone and you should work with what you find most comfortable.
Macbeth as a strong man:
Macbeth begins the play as a strong man – brave, loyal and physically strong. However, he cannot stand up to the women in his life and they pressure him into killing Duncan. By the end of the play, he becomes a tyrannical leader and has given up on life. Shakespeare wanted to show that strong men should remain loyal to their leaders.
- Brave Macbeth, well he deserves that name / Carves his passage: These two quotes prove that Macbeth was brave at the beginning of the play
- We will proceed no further in this business: Here he tries to assert himself over LM but obviously fails
- Pour my spirits in his ear – full of scorpions is my mind dear wife: Proves that LM can and does influence him, also proves that this drove him mad
- Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing: shows that Macbeth has given up by the end.
- There is an essay about this here
Lady Macbeth as a Strong Woman
Lady Macbeth starts the play as a strong woman who can get anyone to do her bidding – spirits and her husband included. By the end, however, she cannot order her own guilt away. In reality: although she can control other people, she cannot control herself. Shakespeare wanted to show that women who tried to be too dominant would suffer in the end.
- Come you spirits: orders the spirits to do her bidding – using imperatives
- Leave all the rest to me: shows how the plan was her idea
- Abuses Macbeth in A1 S7 – you choose the quotes
- O, 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! – this is from the Banquet scene, when she’s telling Macbeth off for being a baby!
- Out Damn Spot! Out I say! – Here she is trying to tell the spot to go away – using imperatives – but it no longer listens to her
- You could also look at the comparison between “stop up the passage to remorse” which LM asks for from the spirits, and the fact that immediately after Hecate takes away the support of the witches LM becomes consumed by guilt and kills herself. This is an original idea.
Relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth
The Macbeths have a relationship that could be seen as abusive. She controls and dominates him, and using him to get what she really wants – power. In the end, however, with her gone Macbeth loses any reason to go on and becomes lost in depression. Shakespeare wanted to show the danger that comes from allowing women too much power in a relationship.
- Too full of the milk of human kindness – in A1 S5 she’s clearly not very impressed with him and lists reasons why he’s too nice or too forgiving or too whatever. She’s not a fan anyway!
- My battlements – this shows that LM sees the castle as hers, making her the dominant one in the relationship. It’s also interesting that she welcomes Duncan to the castle and not her husband.
- My dearest love – When they meet for the first time, she lists his titles to greet him, he simply calls her my dearest love. She has the power!
- She constantly tells him off throughout the play – this is quite Oedipal and it’s worth looking at the post about that
- Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing: shows that Macbeth has given up by the end.
- There are more notes about this here
Madness in Macbeth
Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are destroyed by madness that comes about as a result of killing the king. Their guilt consumes them and drives them insane. Shakespeare wanted to show that killing the king, which broke the natural order (or the Great Chain of Being,) would lead to chaos everywhere and madness for those who did it.
- Seeing the dagger – there’s an essay about this here
- These deeds must not be thought / After these ways; so, it will make us mad. – just after killing Duncan LM says, prophetically, that if they think on what they’ve done it will make them mad.
- Full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife – spirits in your ear – Macbeth shows he is going mad in this quote, but was the madness caused by his wife?
- Macbeth has murdered sleep, sleep is the “balm of hurt minds” – was this caused by Macbeth’s guilt or the witches’ spell? Sleep is described as being something that will help hurt minds, and this is what Macbeth needs.
- Seeing Banquo at dinner – that’s pretty mad isn’t it. Was this caused by Macbeth’s guilt?
- Out damn spot! Out I say! – Lady Macbeth wanders in her sleep, finally forced to face her own guilt. A madness has consumed her.
Regret / Guilt
Lady Macbeth is most interesting when looking at this in Macbeth. At the opening of the play she is insistent that she will show no guilt – and is even rude about the fact that her husband will – but towards the end she cannot contain her guilt anymore and it destroys her. Shakespeare wanted to show that guilt was an inevitable result of committing terrible crimes in the hope that he would warn other people off doing it.
- Stop up the access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose – here LM calls on the spirits to take away the chance of her feeling any guilt at all.
- The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures – LM
- Hecate – when Hecate sees the witches in A4 S5 she withdraws her support for what is happening and it is only after this that LM begins to feel guilt.
- ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. – other than at the end when she kills herself, this is the only bit when LM shows any regret for what they’ve done – it’s from A3 S2
- Out damn spot! Out I say!: Here, LM is consumed by her guilt before she kills herself.
- There are more notes about this here
Revision time! 