Are you a GCSE English Lit student looking for comprehensive essay plans that work for any exam question on Macbeth? This document gives you form, language, and structure interpretations for the whole of Macbeth, along with character interpretations for all the main and minor characters, including ...
1. supernatural doesn’t control us - Macbeth’s hamartia = curiosity + desire to challenge his
fate
2. Macbeth = tragic hero - dangers of a patriarchal society - women shouldn’t be denied
power/should be denied power
3. consequences for the Great Chain of Being - dangers of committing regicide + going
against the natural order - removal of sleep (motif)
Form:
● Revenge tragedy - Macbeth is adequately punished for his usurpation of the throne -
Banquo haunts + humiliates him in front of the nobles - form of God’s avenging +
triumph over evil - consequences of betraying Great Chain of Being
● Tragedy - Macbeth is unable to fully deal with his curiosity + desire to challenge fate -
audience feels catharsis + pathos for Macbeth because he is unable to actually - see
Macbeth’s demise in character - when Lady Macbeth dies - because they’re the same
person his ambition also dies - the only part left in Macbeth is the part which is “too full
of the milk of human kindness” - realises the error of his ways - Macbeth becomes a
villain = his tragedy
● Anti-climatic ending - balance after tyranny - sense of poetic justice - Macbeth is
brutally punished = tragedy of his wasted potential = catharsis = question whether
Macduff’s reign will last
● Macbeth’s association with the supernatural corrupts him - in Greek myth - fate was
decided by the three fates who decided when you would live + die + cut they cut the
thread to represent the ending of your life - couldn’t avoid that fate
● In Greek tragedy - they try desperately to avoid fate - this meets them to get to their fate
● Shakespeare subverts the conventions of tragedy - Macbeth finds out that his fate is to
be King - he does everything he can to achieve his fate - doesn’t try to avoid his fate -
Shakespeare points out that the tragedy in Macbeth isn’t the gods imposing a fate upon
him - it’s his own free will
● England = masculine - Scotland = feminine (context = paganism)
, ● Peripetia = hero’s error in judgment which leads to a sudden shift in the change of
events
● Anagnorisis = realisation about the reversal brought about by his own actions
Ending:
● Peripetia = Macbeth’s trusting of the witches - Macbeth uses epistemological questions
to the witches is too trusting of them
● Anagnorisis - when Macbeth realises that Lady Macbeth is dead - she was never affected
by guilt + she was morally cold - then he decides to die - he knows he going to hell -
catharsis for the audience - manipulated by LM
● Anagnorisis - after Macduff’s revelation that he was “untimely ripped” from his mother’s
womb - Macbeth understands the witches have played him - the realisation is too late to
save him
● Binary opposition between Macduff + Macbeth - the fact that Macduff kills Macbeth
symbolises that betraying God + turning to the supernatural will have consequences
● Kerzel’s 2015 film
- Malcolm rides into the battlefield past Macbeth’s dead body
- Banquo then runs after him with Macbeth’s daggers - perhaps the story has come full
circle - hinting that Malcolm’s kingship is as vulnerable as King Duncan’s + as
“fruitless” as Macbeth’s
● Macbeth is humiliated in death - he dies in the green world (where there are no rules) -
it’s ironic - where he first sinned (due to the witches' manipulation) + where he will last
sin
● Macbeth’s decision to go onto the battlefield - makes him want to die as a false
Renaissance man (which he never was) + he should have never been - because he’s a
soldier = binary opposition between Macbeth + Macduff
● When Lady Macbeth dies - because they’re the same person his ambition also dies - the
only part left in Macbeth is the part which is “too full of the milk of human kindness” -
realises the error of his ways - Macbeth becomes a villain = his tragedy
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