YORK NOTES: The Experts in English
YOUR 4-Step CHECK-UP ON MACBETH
Step 1 PLOT AND CHARACTERS
Where are you in your Macbeth studies? Start by answering these quiz-style
questions to check your knowledge of the plot and characters.
1. The play opens with a group of three on a ‘heath’. Who are they?
2. Who is King of Scotland at this point in the play?
3. We first meet Macbeth and Banquo in person in Act 1 Scene 3. What brutal event
have they been involved in?
4. What different things do the witches promise Macbeth and Banquo when they
meet them?
5. What is Lady Macbeth doing when we first meet her in Act 1 Scene 5?
6. What ghostly vision does Macbeth see on his way to murder the king in Act 2 Scene 1?
7. How does Lady Macbeth try to make it look like the king’s grooms have murdered him?
8. Who discovers the King murdered in the morning?
9. What do the king’s sons, Malcolm and Donaldbain, decide to do?
10. In what way do the murderers hired by Macbeth to kill Banquo and his son fail in
their task?
11. How does the banquet in Act 3 Scene 4, which is supposed to be a high point for
Macbeth, turn into a disaster?
12. What three prophesies do the witches reveal to Macbeth in Act 4 Scene 1?
13. In the same scene, what apparition shown to Macbeth horrifies him?
14. What happens to Lady Macduff and her children in the scene which follows?
15. Who does Macduff go to see in England? Why is Macduff initially disappointed at
this meeting?
16. What is Lady Macbeth doing when the doctor and ‘gentlewoman’ observe her
sleepwalking?
17. How does the prophecy about Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane come true?
18. Who becomes king at the end of the play?
19. What is the name of the young soldier Macbeth kills?
20. When Macduff kills Macbeth, what other two prophecies are proved correct?
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Step 2 LANGUAGE AND THEMES
How much do you know about the language and themes of the play?
1. Here are five quotations from the play. Can you identify who is speaking (and,
where relevant, who they are speaking to)?
a) ‘Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here’ (Act 1 Scene 5)
b) ‘O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!’ (Act 3 Scene 2)
c) ‘Avaunt, and quit my sight, let the earth hide thee—/Thy bones are marrowless,
thy blood is cold...’ (Act 3 Scene 4)
d) ‘Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn/The power of man; for none of
woman born/Shall harm Macbeth’ (Act 4 Scene 1)
e) ‘Here’s the smell of the blood still—all the/perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten
this little hand. O,/O, O.’ (Act 5 Scene 1)
2. Read these further quotations. What theme(s) do you think they are linked to, or
explore, e.g. Good and evil? Ambition? Why?
a) Banquo (to Macbeth): ‘oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/The instruments of
darkness tell us truths...’ (Act 1 Scene 3)
b) Macbeth (to Lady Macbeth): ‘False face must hide what the false heart doth
know’ (Act 1 Scene 7)
c) Macbeth (after the murder to Lady Macbeth): I’ll go no more:/I am afraid to
think what I have done.’ (Act 2 Scene 2)
d) Macbeth (to himself): ‘Stars, hide your fires,/Let not light see my black and deep
desires’ (Act 1 Scene 4)
e) Malcolm (about the Macbeths): ‘this dead butcher, and his fiend-like Queen’
(Act 5 Scene 7)
Step 3 WRITING SKILLS
A student has drafted this paragraph about the character of Lady Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth finally disintegrates in Act 5 Scene 1 haunted by
the bloody murders of and Lady Macduff. She
sleepwalks and desperately wonders will these hands ne’r be clean?
This is ironic given that she was the one in Act 2 Scene 2 who was
angry with Macbeth when
1. Copy out the paragraph and add in the missing detail in the first sentence
2. Put quotation marks around the quotation the student uses
3. Finish the paragraph, completing the last sentence
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Step 4 CLOSE ANALYSIS
This scene comes from Act 2 Scene 2 of the play. Macbeth has just returned from killing
the king and refuses to take the daggers he used back to the room.
LADY MACBETH
Infirm of purpose;
Give me the daggers; the sleeping, and the dead,
Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.
Exit. Knocking within
MACBETH
Whence is that knocking?
Gl os sa ry
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood multitudinous:
Clean from my hand? No—this my hand will rather vast, numerous
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
incarnadine:
Making the green one red.
bright crimson
Enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
My hands are of your colour, but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
Why is this scene important? Write one to two paragraphs (between 75 and
100 words) about:
• What it tells us about the characters or relationships at this point
• Any themes or ideas which are suggested from the language
• How the scene could link with other scenes or parts of the play
Well done for completing your 4-Step Check-Up on Macbeth !
You'll find lots of help with studying and revising the play, including revision cards and
practice tests, on our website www.yorknotes.com
Rapid Revision Guide Rapid Revision Cards Study Guide Workbook Practice Tests
3 © Copyright York Press, Ltd, 2020. Photo credit (page 3): Shutterstock / Dimedrol68
