Macbeth revision for thu

Macbeth revision for thu

1. Characters

   • Banquo
   • Macbeth
   • Lady Macbeth
   • Duncan
   • Malcolm
   • Fleance
   • Macduff

2. Plot Summary (most important bits) Act 1

   • Three witches meet Macbeth.
   • Macbeth beheads someone in the battle
   • Witches predict Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor
   • Macbeth becomes Thane of Cawdor
   • Lady Macbeth hears the news of the prophecies and Macbeth is going to become King
   • Banquo suspicious - and hears the prophecies
   • Macbeth has a vision of a dagger - and is hallucinating
   • Malcolm is named as Duncan's successor
   • Macbeth decides to kill Duncan, but has second thoughts
   • Two drunken men kill Duncan for good
   • Murder is discovered - Macbeth has now killed three attendants
   • Banquo is murdered, but Fleance (his son) escapes
   • Macbeth meets with the witches again
   • Macbeth has visions
   • Macduff joined Malcolm in England and hears of this family's murder
   • Battle plans/military preparations are planned
   • Lady Macbeth is dead
   • Birham Wood comes to Dunsinane (personification)

3. Themes

   • Blind Ambition
     • What extreme lengths will people go to achieve their goals?
     • Planning to kill Duncan
     • Lady Macbeth: "unsex me here" - Act 1 Scene 5 - she's willing to give up her 'feminine' qualities to support her husband in his goals
   • Power corrupts
     • Macbeth kills Banquo
   • Appearance vs reality
     • Things are not always what they seem - "Fair is foul and foul is fair" - Act 1 Scene 1
     • Supernatural - "tempest-tossed" - Act 1 Scene 3
     • Prophecies - "that shalt be king hereafter" - Act 1 Scene 3
     • Foreshadowing - "unseam's him from the nave to th' chaps"
     • Lady Macbeth: "look like the power but be the serpent underneath it"
     • "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust
   • Fate vs free will
     • Is it own choices that control our destiny? Or is there some divine or diabolical power (environment, genetics, even entertainment) that determines our destiny.
     • Self-fulfilling prophecies. Belief in the supernatural or superstition can change human behaviour and our destiny/outcome
     • Conflicting views - "lost" "won" & "ill" "good". Mirrors the language - can predict the future - supernatural.

4. Context