Turning points
Complete Macbeth's description of his motivation: "vaulting ___________"
What is Ambition
Who are Duncans sons?
What is Malcolm and Donalbain
Beyond physical injury, what can blood symbolise in the play?
What is Guilt, moral responsibility or the lasting consequences of violence,
What title does Macbeth receive soon after meeting the witches?
What is Thane of Cawdor!
Who says, "A little water clears us of this deed?"
What is Lady Macbeth after King Duncan's murder.
Who is Banquos son that flees from death?
What is Fleance
Explain the meaning of the quote, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble".
What is it emphasises the creation of chaos, duplicity and the foreshadowing of corruption of Scotland.
Why does Macbeth arrange for both Banquo and Fleance to be murdered?
He fears the prediction that Banquo's descendants will become kings, threatening the future of his own royal line.
Macbeth describes his mind as “full of scorpions”. Identify the technique and explain what it suggests.
What is Metaphor: his thoughts are painful and threatening, revealing fear and mental torment despite gaining the crown
Who says 'Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. Not so happy, yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none'?
What is the witches
What are two of the witches apparitions and what do they symbolize?
What is An armoured head warning Macbeth of MacDuff, the Thane of Fife. /The bloody baby which symbolizes that no person woman born can kill him. /A child holding a tree symbolizes that he will never be defeated until Birnham Wood moves.
How does the prediction about Birnam Wood appear to come true?
What is Malcolm's soldiers carry branches from Birnam Wood to conceal themselves as they approach Dunsinane.
What does Lady Macbeth’s contrast between an “innocent flower” and a “serpent” suggest about appearance and reality?
What is An outward appearance of harmlessness can conceal dangerous intentions. She encourages Macbeth to use deception to enable betrayal.
Why is it too simplistic to claim that the witches force Macbeth to murder Duncan?
What is They predict kingship but do not command Duncan’s murder. Macbeth considers his obligations and then chooses violence. The supernatural influences his thinking without clearly removing his agency
What is a soliloquy, and how does Shakespeare use Macbeth’s soliloquy before Duncan’s murder?
A speech that reveals a character’s private thoughts. Macbeth’s soliloquy exposes his conflicting desires, moral awareness and recognition of ambition as his motive
What does Macbeth say after hearing of Lady Macbeths suicide? Quote or paraphrase...
What is 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."
Connect Lady Macbeth’s statement about water in 2.2 with her attempts to clean imagined blood in 5.1. What interpretation does this contrast support?
What is Her earlier confidence that wrongdoing can be easily removed is overturned by compulsive hand-cleaning. The contrast suggests that concealing physical evidence cannot erase guilt or moral responsibility.
Who says this about Macbeth?"Yet do I fear nature; It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way"
What is Lady Macbeth
What is the difference between answering “Analyse the significance of the supernatural” and “How is the nature of the supernatural represented”?
Significance: explain its importance to the play’s action and ideas, such as temptation and responsibility. Nature: explain the qualities Shakespeare gives it, such as deception, ambiguity and menace, and how dramatic or language choices construct those qualities.
How is the quote said by the witches, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes" an example of irony in the play
What is Macbeth has become so morally degraded and evil that even the supernatural witches label him as the wicked one.