Macbeth Notes

Simple Play

-        Plot is a quick rise and fall (King by Act III)

-        Not plot driven, character driven

Macbeth

-        Doesn’t share his thoughts like Hamlet does.

-        Tragic Flaw: Ambition

-        His loss came about by his own decisions

§  Coping mechanisms are self destructive

-        Shows promise in the first couple acts

§  By the end he is alone, despised, disappointed and isolated

-         

-        His Appeal: Moral sense

§  Makes him relatable and human

§  Can be seen in his attempt to make things right

§  Doesn’t want to go against all he believes by killing Duncan

Why does he kill Duncan?

-        Wants to badly fulfill the prophecy

-        Isn’t content with what he has and wants more

-        “punished for sins”

-        Could have seen the prophecy as an “OK” to do sinful things

-        Danger perversely pulls him toward it

-        He put himself in that situation, almost forcing him to kill

§  Embraces evil, with slight hesitation

§  Tricks himself into killing

-        After becoming king

§  Slippery slope of logic

§  Acts like an addict

§  Paranoid and fearful that people will find out he is the murderer

§  Mind drives him to kill

§  Soliloquy states his refusal to accept the life he has created

There is a strong suggestion that Macbeth and Lady M. talked about the killing before the play started.

Lady Macbeth

-        Animus: masculine

-        Pure evil

-        Taunts Macbeth, saying scruples are like being unmanly

-        She wants Macbeth to be more like her

-        Fickle

§  Can’t take the inner torment and falls apart

-        Sleepwalking

§  Surreal sense of not completely being there towards the end

§  Washes hands to rid herself of the blood on them

§  Almost feel sorry for her by the end because she succumbs to a guilt she won’t accept

Lady M. and Macbeth are on the same at the beginning but then Macbeth stops telling her his plans after killing the king. It’s almost as though he’s saying he doesn’t need her masculinity anymore, he’s a man now.

Witches

-        Tempt M. in a way he can’t control

-        Malicious intent and prophetic power are important

-        Questionable whether they really pushed him to kill

-        Can be seen as heroines

Macbeth Test Corrections

1. Macbeth won the respect of King Duncan by
A. slaying the traitor Macdonwald. 
2. King Duncan rewarded Macbeth by dubbing him
B. the Thane of Cawdor him. 
3. In addressing Banquo, the witches called him which of these?
"Lesser than Macbeth, and greater." (I)
"Not so happy as Macbeth, yet much happier." (II)
"A future father of kings." (III)
 A. I and II 
4. When Macbeth said, "Two truths are told / As happy prologues" he was referring to
C. the predictions made to Banquo and to himself. 
5. "Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it" is a reference to
A. the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. 
6. Duncan's statement, "I have begun to plant thee and will labour / To make thee full of growing" is an example of
B. a metaphor.
7. Lady Macbeth characterizes her husband as being
B. "too full of the milk of human kindness." 
 8. When Macbeth agonizes over the possible killing of the king, which of these does he say?
"He is my house guest; I should protect him." (I)
"Duncan's virtues will "plead like angels" " (II)
"I am his kinsman and his subject" (III)
B. II and III 
9. Macbeth's statement to his wife, "Bring forth men-children only" signifies that he
C. has accepted the challenge to slay the king. 
10. As part of the plan to kill the king, Lady Macbeth would
A. get the chamberlains drunk. 

PART 2
1. "Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible / To feeling as to sight?" is a reference to the
B. dagger. 
2. Lady Macbeth confessed that she would have killed King Duncan herself except for the fact that
B. he looked like her father 
3. Shakespeare introduced the Porter in order to
B. remind the audience of the Witches' prophecies.
 4. Malcolm and Donalbain flee after the murder
A. because they fear the daggers in men's smiles. 
5. Macbeth arranges for Banquo's death by telling the hired killers that
C. he will eradicate all records of their previous crimes. 
6. Macbeth startles his dinner guests by
A. conversing with the Ghost of Banquo
7. The Witches threw into the cauldron "Eye of bat and tongue of frog"(I) "Wool of bat and tongue of dog" (II) "Fang of snake and eagle's glare" (III)
A. I and II 
8. The three apparitions which appeared to Macbeth were An armed head. (I) A child with a crown. (II) A bloody child (III)
C. I, II, and III
9. In Act IV, Malcolm is at first lukewarm toward Macduff because he
B. suspects a trick. 
10. Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane when
B. the camouflaged soldiers make their advance.