Summary GCSE Grade 9 English Literature Macbeth Essay Full Mark
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Course
English
Institution
GCSE
Grade 9 Essay used in the real exam that achieved full marks. Includes introduction, 8 main body paragraphs and a conclusion - adaptable to any question for Inspector Calls - hits the top level of all Assessment Objectives and perfect to use for remembering Grade 9 points or as an essay in itself t...
Shakespeare conveys Macbeth’s hamartia of bloodlust and ambition as the driving force
behind his downfall and presents the manipulation of Lady Macbeth and the supernatural as
a symbol of temptation as catalysts to his inevitable fate. Shakespeare demonstrates how
the acquisition of power invokes an irreversible change in character, subverting the
Jacobean audience’s expectations as he implies that a person’s poor qualities are amplified
by the crown - Macbeth becomes paranoid.
In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is conveyed as the epitome of a loyal and
quintessential Scottish soldier when the sergeant recalls Macbeth’s noble actions as he
“carv’d the passage” to get to the traitor - Macdonwald. Specifically, the emotive verb
“carv’d” carries strong connotations of combative expertise and nobility. Alternatively, it
could allude to him carving his name famously in the beginning of the play and eventually
notoriously at the end of the play, foreshadowing his drastic moral decline. There is stark
contrast between Macbeth murdering an enemy of the king (which would be seen as an
enemy to God due to the Divine Right of Kings believed by the contemporary audience) and
when he commits regicide - the ultimate sin shown in his description of “butcher” near the
end of the play.
Shakespeare illustrates how Macbeth’s kingship is already tainted with ambition and
defiance of the natural order although influenced by extraneous forces of evil, they
undoubtedly release a wellspring of ambition already inside him. This is explicitly referenced
in Act 1 when he says “Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and falls on th’other”. A
dactylic metre is used in this quote which is reminiscent of the sound of a galloping horse.
This could symbolise the relentlessness of Macbeth’s ambition and violence - an endless
driving force like that of a horse. However, it could also foreshadow Banquo’s assassination
which happened on horseback which emphasises the devastating consequences of
Macbeth’s tyranny and disruption of natural order. “Falls on th’other” also foreshadows
Macbeth’s downfall and this is reinforced by the metaphor “poisoned chalice” which is a
sacred object that has biblical connotations and would be more drastic to a Christocentric
audience.
Additionally, Macbeth ‘fixed his head upon our battlements’. The head is symbolic as a
motif of Macbeth’s declining heroism. First he is at his moral peak as he beheads the King’s
enemy, effectively God’s enemy in the eyes of the contemporary audience, then after having
his moral endurance tested in the form of ‘supernatural splicing’ he goes out to commit
regicide, losing all virtue. Finally, Shakespeare uses this motif to highlight the negative
consequences to his audience as the ‘head’ foreshadows Macbeth’s later disgrace as his
own head becomes described as ‘the usurper’s cursed head’ that is reminiscent of his
previous morality before he was corrupted by bloodlust and the witches’ prophecies.
Shakespeare forces his audience to question whether the unlawful act of treason has a
supernatural urge, whether there are malign witches and demonic forces working against the
moral bonds of mankind. Macbeth’s growing inclination towards ‘supernatural soliciting’
leaves him in a perplexed self-questioning state "why hath it given me earnestness of
success/commencing in a truth?” Linguistically, the sibilance of ‘supernatural soliciting’
is deliberately used by Shakespeare to raise his audience’s alarm, given the satanic
connotations and reference to devastating sorcery in the form of ‘soliciting’ The Jacobean
audience including King James I were very wary of the supernatural; James wrote
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