“All hail to thee!”
Welcome to this guide on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I know that at first Shakespeare can seem a bit frightening or complicated, but don’t worry! This study guide is made in a way that will break the key aspects of the play down for you in simple, easy to learn steps - bef...
Welcome to this guide on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I know that at first Shakespeare can seem a bit
frightening or complicated, but don’t worry! This study guide is made in a way that will break the key
aspects of the play down for you in simple, easy to learn steps - before showing you how to put all of
those ideas together and turn them into a perfect essay. The key to any Shakespeare play is to start
with the basic outline of the story. Then, once you understand the simple bits, you can start to delve
deeper into the more sophisticated aspects of themes, attitudes and language. Don’t try to do all of that
at once, and don’t start looking at random scenes or characters before you know the whole story - it’ll
never make sense to you that way round.
Over the next few pages, we’ll be looking at some basic principles of studying Shakespeare: How to
understand and break down his plays, how to write a proper essay, and finally how you’ll be assessed in
the exam itself. You’ll then find a complete analysis of the major aspects of the play:
• Setting
• Characters
• Plot summary
• Themes
• Context (including Jacobean beliefs and attitudes)
Followed by some example essays (for GCSE and A Level) that I have completed myself, and essays that
students have completed in both timed and untimed conditions - with my feedback on how they did and
how they should improve. There’s also a giant list of exam questions I’ve made that you can use to plan
and practise essay writing.
Reading this book alone will not get you a high grade, you want to make sure that you are actively
improving your knowledge of Macbeth by exploring questions, key scenes and key quotations of the
play. How you think about the deeper ideas and the meaning that you can interpret from the language of
the play will make all the difference between a mid-level or high-level grade. Once you’re comfortable
with the basic plot and I encourage you to read through the text (aloud if possible), annotate it
yourself and find your own thoughts and opinions too. All literature exams and essays will test you for
a ‘personal response’, meaning you must have your own personal ideas on the play and not just copy
what you’ve learned - but that comes later, after you’ve built confidence and you’ve thought deeply
about your ideas.
Then, you’ll need to practise essays! I was awful at essay writing when I started out; I’m sure most
people are the same way. It’s a craft and a skill to write good essays; the more you write the easier they
become - don’t give up in the beginning because they’re difficult. Focus on improving a tiny bit every
time you write one, and never repeating the same mistakes twice. If you do that and repeat the process
of essay writing, you’ll end up at a point where you’re getting ridiculously high grades that you never
thought you’d be able to achieve. Ideally, you’ll need a teacher or someone who can give you feedback
on your writing too - that’s very important for improvement because you can’t know yourself where
you’re doing well, and where you need to improve. Quite a lot of my students every year go from around
a D to an A or A* grade, and they always manage it by following this process.
If you’re not sure about how to write good essays, keep on reading because I go through the process in
detail below.
How should I think about the play?
The most important aspect of studying Macbeth, of course, is understanding drama. Let’s start with a
basic question: What is a play? I want you to think about that and answer it in your own words if you
can. You might also want to research how other people describe plays. Here are a few ideas to get you
thinking:
• What does it mean if something is ‘dramatic’?
• How do we normally experience a play? You may think of plays that you’ve watched yourself. If
you haven’t seen any plays, think of films that you’ve watched because they are a similar genre.
• How does the acting in a play bring the story to life?
• How does the staging, costume, setting and lighting affect our interpretation of the play?
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