This document contains the perceptive quotes and character analysis for Macbeth that were used by my GCSE students to achieve grade 9s within their English literature exams. Each point includes unique analysis and contextual information.
Macbeth:
Shakespeare presents Macbeth as:
- Brave and valiant at the beginning of the play
“smoked with bloody execution”
Adjective “bloody”/ noun phrase “bloody execution” are both examples of
violent imagery, conjuring a visceral image in the mind of the reader – suggests
to the reader just how courageous and powerful Macbeth is in the early stages
of the play. This drastically juxtaposes with his cowardly nature following the
killing of Banquo and the hallucination of his ghost in Act 3, perhaps
intentionally done by Shakespeare as a way to emphasise just how drastic
Macbeth’s peripeteia is. This in turn allows Shakespeare to reinforce his
message of warning his readers of the severe consequence of disrupting the
great chain of being at the time, especially due to the play being written during
the reign of James I who heavily believed in maintaining the “right” order of
things.
Moreover, through the use of the verb “smoked” connoting heat and
compassion, Shakespeare potentially suggests Macbeth’s loyalty and
compassion to Duncan and the throne at the start of the play. However, the
substance “smoke” is known to show the danger or effects caused by a fire. In
the same way, Shakespeare potentially hints at the danger of Macbeth later in
the play as he goes on to commit countless murders, caused by the
metaphorical fire: his hamartia, ambition.
“disdaining fortune”, “carved”, “unseamed”
Shakespeare perhaps includes active verbs such as “carved” and “unseamed”
connoting proactivity and disruption to an extent as a way to foreshadow
Macbeth’s active disruption of nature through his regicide. Furthermore, by
describing Macbeth as “disdaining” (in other words disregarding) “fortune” (in
this case emblematic of nature and the righteous order of things), he hints at
how Macbeth will go on to go against what would have been considered the
“right” order of things through his acts of regicide and homicide and as a result
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