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Macbeth Revision
 Key Themes
●
Purpose
entertainment
Act 5, Scene 1 ● guilt
● message: ambition ● gender roles
and desire is ● supernatural
destructive Summary ○ her
● designed especially ● a doctor and a woman are talking about LM sleepwalking
for King James
● LM enters, sleepwalking and talking about the was seen as a
murders she and Macbeth have committed cursed and
paranormal act
Key Quotes
“Hell is murky!”
“Out, damned spot! out I say” ➢ is in hell, purgatory
➢ permanence, agitation → symbolises her guilt → constant ➢ Act 1 Scene 5 → “come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell…
➢ loss of control, guilt overpowering her nor heaven peep through the blanket of dark”

“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” “heaven knows what she has known”
➢ talking about Duncan → the thought and guilt of Duncan being dead haunts her
→ maybe because he looked like her father making the crime more harmful to
➢ Lady Macbeth has unconsciously confessed her guilt about the
her murder → now God/heaven knows what she has done

“Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale”

“This disease is beyond my practise” ➢ remembering about trying to cover up the guilt (said these things to Macbeth) →
➢ Act 2 Scene 2 → “so brainsickly of things” “look the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” → her “serpent” has been
➢ anaphoric reference → reference to/from the past exposed through her sleepwalking
➢ anaphoric reference

“there’s knocking at the gate” “unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles” “infected minds”
➢ gate to hell, Act 2 Scene 3 (the porter) ➢ Lady Macbeth is doomed
Possible Questions Links to the Play as a Whole
● Write about how Techniques
Shakespeare ● sentence
presents guilt in Act 1, Scene 5 (Lady Macbeth reads letter from Macbeth about encounter with witches &
the play
prophecies)
● “Come thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell”
structure
● Explore how ●
●
“Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall”
“unsex me here” ● allusions
Shakespeare ○ mentally preparing to kill Duncan
● irony
women were stereotypically thoughts to be pure, dependent on others, weak, meant to
presents Lady ○
raise children
Macbeth. ○ duality of women: feminine and loving but also vicious and wicked
○ at one point we sympathise, at another we despise her
○ Lady Macbeth cannot handle the masculine role as she eventually goes insane and kills
herself

Act 2, Scene 2 (Macbeth comes back after killing Duncan)

● “Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t”
○ if Lady Macbeth actually had the will to kill him herself, she might not have given in to the paranoia Macbeth does which leads him on
his killing spree
● “You do unbend your noble strength, to think so brainsickly of things”
○ psychological disorders → foreshadows the madness to come which overtakes them both

Act 2, Scene 3 (drunken doorkeeper ignores the knocking at the door and pretends he’s the gatekeeper of hell)
● “If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key”
● “I pray you, remember the porter”
○ porter is talking about many things that can get you into hell
○ Shakespeare makes sure you remember all of these things and how Macbeth is doing nearly all of them
Possible Questions Act 5, Scene 1 Essay Plan Ideas
● Write about how ● cyclical
Shakespeare
structure
presents guilt in Paragraph 1 ● religious
the play ● cyclical structure
● Explore how ● beginning of play → didn’t show any sign of guilt → now shows she is feeling this allusions
emotion
Shakespeare
● Lady Macbeth starts with Act 1, Scene 5 → Act 5, Scene 1 is her last scene (duality) ● irony
presents Lady ● “come, come, come, come” → “come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts” (Act 1, ● motif of blood
Macbeth. Scene 5)

Paragraph 2
“Out, damned spot!” “Hell is murky!” “heaven knows what she has known”
Shakespeare’s use of religious allusion
Introduction ●
● “damned” → doomed
In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare
explores the theme of ● disobedience to the “thou shalt not kill” commandment
guilt through Lady ● consequence of sin
Macbeth. She displays Conclusion
the guilt she carries in In conclusion,
this extract by Paragraph 3
sleepwalking and talking “will these hands ne’er be clean?” “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” “look like
the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”
about the murders she
● Shakespeare’s use of irony
and her husband have ● Macbeth believed “all great Neptune’s ocean” could not clean the blood from his hand
committed. and Lady Macbeth said “a little water clears us of this deed” (Act 2, Scene 2)
● roles have reversed → Lady Macbeth could not handle the masculine role → audience
now sympathise for her
● duality of women: feminine, loving, fair & vicious, wicked, foul
 Key Themes
Possible Questions Act 5, Scene 1 Essay Plan ● guilt
● Write about how ● gender roles
Shakespeare
presents guilt in “who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” ● supernatural
the play
● motif of blood ○ her
● desperation to wash herself of the guilt, to disassociate from the sins she has
● Explore how sleepwalking
committed
Shakespeare ● the Macbeths find themselves surrounded by it was seen as a
presents Lady ● at the beginning, blood is associated with violence and warfare, later changes cursed and
Macbeth. and refers to the guilt of the crimes paranormal act

Introduction “Out, damned spot!” “Hell is murky!” “heaven knows what she has known”
In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare ● Shakespeare’s use of religious allusion
presents Lady Macbeth as ● the pair have created their own hell, tormented by guilt and anxiety
a powerful figure who tries
●
to obtain masculine
qualities, but eventually
cannot handle the role as it
Conclusion
leads to her insanity and In conclusion,
suicide. A Jacobean Gender Roles Shakespeare's use of
audience would have been ● consistently throughout the play, she assumes she must become more masculine to be
dominant
surprised with this
● she displays her ambition without hesitation, in comparison, Macbeth hesitates
character as women were ● her femininity lies in her deep devotion to her husband and the degree to which she
stereotypically thought to understands and loves him
be weak and dependent on ● their roles in the relationship have switched
others. ● constructed to show a multitude of emotional responses from the audience and cause
them to question the traditional boundaries of men and women roles