English Lit: Macbeth — Act 1

English Lit: Macbeth — Act 1

1. Scene 1

   • A desert place — witches plotting
     • 1st Witch: “When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning and in rain?”
       • Foreshadowing
       • Atmoshphere
       • Trochaic meter
         • Witches are unnatural
     • 2nd Witch: “There to meet with Macbeth”
       • Declarative sentence
         • Makes us question Macbeth’s character
     • Witches: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air”
       • Oxymoron
       • Rhyming couplet
       • Suggests things aren’t what they seem
         • Theme developed over the course of the play
     • “Thunder and lightning”
       • Stage direction sets a dark and violent mood

2. Scene 3

   • A heath — first appearance of Macbeth
     • Witch: “Thou shalt be kind hereafter”
       • Prophecy
       • Macbeth ‘starts’ when he hears this
     • Banquo: “What, can the devil speak true?”
       • Ross arrives to tell Macbeth he’s Thane of Cawdor
       • Macbeth admits to a ‘horrid image’ terrifying him
         • “If chance may have me king, why chance may crown me”
           • Personification of fate/destiny
     • Macbeth: “So fair and foul a day I have not seen”
       • Echoes final lines of scene 1
         • Hints that Macbeth’s fate is linked with the Witches
     • Witches: “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater” “Not so happy, yet happier”
       • Witches talk in riddles and paradoxes to mislead Macbeth and Baquo
     • Macbeth: “make my seared heart knock at my ribs”

3. Scene 6

   • Kind Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s castle
     • Duncan: “pleasant...sweetly” “honoured hostess!”
       • Macbeth and Lady M are welcoming
       • Ironic — audience know they’re plotting to kill him
     • Lady M: “those honours deep down and broad wherewith Your majesty loads our house
       • Contrast to scene 5 — shows how false Lady M is
     • Macbeth about Duncan: “Hath borne his faculties so meek...that his virtues Will plead like angels”
       • He recognises he’s a good king.
       • Duncan’s righteousness makes Macbeth feel even more guilty about murdering him

4. Scene 4

   • Palace — King Duncan praises Macbeth but announces Malcolm will be next king
     • Duncan: “The Prince Of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap For in my way it lies”
       • Metaphor
         • Malcolm is an obstacle
     • Duncan: “There’s no art To find the mind’s construction in the face: He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust.”
       • Says people may seem good and trustworthy but might not be
         • Ironic as he misjudged Macbeth
     • Macbeth: “Let not light see my black and deep desires”
       • Rhyming couplets
         • Emphasises importance of his words
         • Similar to the way the Witches soeak

5. Scene 2

   • Army camp — Macbeth’s bravery in battle, Thane of Cawdor
     • Sergeant: “For brave Macbeth — well he deserves that name”
       • Reinforces idea of courage & honour
     • Duncan: “What he hath lost noble Macbeth hath won”
       • Contrast/antithisis
       • Lexical field of valour
     • Macbeth: “unsealed him from the nave to the chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements.”
       • Beheads a traitor
         • Foreshadows his death
     • Captain: “Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe”
       • Praised for bloodthirsty behaviour
         • Irony is that his violence will eventually cause his downfall

6. Scene 5

   • Macbeth’s castle — Lady M reads letter
     • Lady M: “Yet I do fear thy nature / It is too full o’the milk of human kindness”
       • Metaphor
     • Lady M casts spell to make herself full of ‘direst cruelty’
       • “Come, you spirits,unisex me here”
         • Dark imagery
     • Lady M to Macbeth: “look like the innocent flower but the the serpent under’t”
       • Biblical imagery

7. Scene 7

   • The Macbeth’s Plan the muder
     • Macbeth: “poisoned chalice To our own lips”
       • Foreshadows his death at the end
     • Lady M: “Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you done to this”
       • Dark imagery — uses their lost child to get Macbeth to do what she wants (manipulating) shows how evil she is