This is a GCSE AQA English literature essay written in the 2024 series for the Macbeth question in the actual exam.
Full marks achieved 34/34
With examiner marking/ comments included!
An example essay to see what an examiner wants for your English GCSE
June 2024- How does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth as a strong woman? (30
marks) (4 marks for SPAG) 34/34 achieved!!!!
The essay has been highlighted where examiner has allocated marks based on the
quality of writing by using the mark scheme
Where Level 1 is lowest and Level 5 and 6 are highest.
https://mmerevise.co.uk/app/uploads/2024/07/AQA-GCSE-English-Lit-MS-JUN23-P1.pdf (
an idea of the markscheme look at only pages 6-10)
LEVEL 3 AO3
In Macbeth the Character Lady Macbeth is seen as a strong character due to her
ambitious and cunning desires. This is significant as a strong ambitious woman in
jacobean society would been viewed as an atrocious trait and almost evil. This is because
of the patriarchal society where male characters had dominance and female characters
was seen inferior and subservient to appease men. But, Shakespeare presents an idea
where Lady macbeth has Freud's idea as the ID (evil side of a person’s nature) to
emphasise the role of Lady Macbeth's mortal thoughts’ and her strong character roles
which pushed Macbeth to his downfall and ultimate death.
In the extract, Lady Macbeth shows herself as a strong character through her epithets and
criticism towards Macbeth. Lady Macbeth calls the known ‘noble’ Macbeth as a “coward”.
The use of an epithet toi symbolise Lady Macbeth's selfishness and strength. This is
because Lady Macbeth criticises and uses her abhorrent language to almost hypnotise
Macbeth to commit regicide against Duncan by questioning and insulting his masculinity.
Furthermore,Lady Macbeth uses more epithets against Macbeth, she states “when you
durst do it then you were a man”. The encouraging tonality and imperative language
towards Macbeth is alluding and brainwashing that she emasculates Macbeth to commit
one of the most sinful and unforgiving sins which is killing the king. This shows how Lady
Macbeth emasculates MAcbeth by testing his most desired trait (his masculinity) and his
unchecked ambition ultimately shows Lady Macbeth as a strong character, this is due to
the fact she was able to hypnotise Macbeth and reverse his role to a cunning ambitious
man who is willing to commit bloodthirsty act. In the Jacobean era this would have been
an awful and disgraceful sight to see in a Christian dominated society. The phrase “durst
do it” where the alliteration of ‘d’ with a commanding tonality suggests Lady Macbeth’s
powerful tactics and her strength is almost seen transcendent , this is significant that at
this point there is a turning point for MAcbeth as he eventually in Act 2 has lost the battle
against Lady Macbeth and ultimately moves to murder Duncan. This would disgust a
Jacobean audience as in Jacobean society they view women as inferior to men and due to
the role reversed in the play it would seem strange and abnormal to them of Lady
Macbeth’s strength.
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