01.07 Macbeth Character Disintegration
You will complete your character study of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth by writing about their development from the beginning of the play to the end. Choose one of these four topics and write your response in a paragraph of eight to ten sentences (150-200 words). Make sure you incorporate evidence from the play to support your thinking. Write your response below. A full credit answer will have at least 3 cited references from throughout the play (beginning, middle, and end).
Topic 1: Explore how Lady Macbeth changes over the course of the play.
Topic 2: Explore how Macbeth changes over the course of the play.
Topic 3: Examine Macbeth and Lady Macbeth before Duncan’s murder. In what ways are they alike and different?
Topic 4: Examine Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after Duncan’s murder. In what ways are they alike and different?
Happily Ever After? Lady Macbeth Unhinged
Previously you have seen Lady Macbeth as a strong, confident woman who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. She acts superior to Macbeth, who she thinks is weak. She has no problem pointing out his flaws. However, as the action of the play unfolds, Lady Macbeth has almost no presence on the stage. Read this scene from ACT V to see what becomes of Lady Macbeth when her cruel nature starts to unravel. Continue to take notes in your Macbeth Characterization graphic organizer.
Listen to this scene from the play.
00:00
© 2013 William ShakespeHappily Ever After? Lady Macbeth Unhinged
Slide 1
ACT V, Scene I
One of Lady Macbeth’s servants has called the doctor because she is concerned that Lady Macbeth has taken to sleepwalking. The doctor and the servant observe Lady Macbeth as she sleepwalks.
LADY MACBETH.
Yet here’s a spot.
DOCTOR.
Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!— One; two; why, then ’tis time to do ;—Hell is murky!—Fie(for shame), my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard?(How are you a soldier and afraid?) What need do we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? (Why do we need to be afraid of anyone knowing what we did when they cannot prove it?)—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
DOCTOR.
Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH.
The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?(The Thane of Fife is Macduff, another Scottish nobleman. Macbeth has Macduff’s wife and children killed after Macduff turns against him.) —What, will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting(You’ll ruin everything by acting this way).
Slide 2
DOCTOR.
This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those who have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH.
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale:—I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.(Here Lady Macbeth continues to talk in her sleep. She addresses Macbeth and reminds him not to be afraid because he’s had his friend Banquo killed and he can’t come back from the grave.)
DOCTOR.
Even so?
LADY MACBETH.
To bed, to bed; there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what’s done cannot be undone: to bed, to bed, to bed.
[Exit.]
Happily Ever After? Lady Macbeth Unhinged
Question 1
Answer the following questions to analyze the theme and characterization in the scene you have just read. Add notes to your Macbeth Characterization Graphic Organizer to record what you learn about the play. Your graphic organizer will help you answer questions on the assessment at the end of the lesson.
Recall what Lady Macbeth said about washing away the blood of the murder earlier in the play. “A little water clears us of this deed:/How easy is it then!”
How do those lines compare to her words and actions during this scene?
Review some key lines to consider.(“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”
“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
“What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”
“Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”)
Happily Ever After? The Undoing of Macbeth
Macbeth is crowned king after Duncan’s death and has another encounter with the weird sisters in ACT IV, Scene I. This time they show him three apparitions:
An armed head tells Macbeth to beware of Macduff.
A bloody child who tells Macbeth no one born of a woman will be able to harm him.
A crowned child holding a tree who tells him he has nothing to fear until Birnam Wood marches to fight at Dunsinane Hill.
These three apparitions embolden Macbeth. He feels invincible because it would be impossible for someone to not be born from a woman, meaning there isn’t a person alive who could harm him. He is also encouraged by the idea that he should not be defeated until the forest marches to fight him because it seems unlikely that a forest would be able to attack him.
Happily Ever After? The Undoing of Macbeth continued
Macbeth’s newfound confidence leads him to act callously and irrationally. Read these scenes to see Macbeth’s downward spiral. What changes do you notice in his character at this point in the play? Take notes in your graphic organizer.
Listen to this scene from the play.
00:00
© 2013 William Shakespeare’s Macbeth – a MJC adaptation by Michael Lynch
SHOW INTERACTIVE
Happily Ever After? Lady Macbeth Unhinged
Slide 1
ACT V, Scene V
MACBETH.
I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: (There was a time when a cry like that would have frightened me and a scary story would have made my hair stand on end.) I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught’rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me. (I’ve had my fill of horrors and now they can’t frighten me at all.)
[Re-enter Seyton.]
Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON.
The queen, my lord, is dead.
Slide 2
MACBETH.(This is Macbeth’s most famous soliloquy.)
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.—(She would have died eventually; I was bound to receive such news.)
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts(to swell) and frets(to suffer) his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound(noise) and fury(rage),
Signifying nothing.
Slide 3
[Enter a Messenger.]
Thou com’st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.(Quickly tell me what you have come to say.)
MESSENGER.
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
MACBETH.
Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER.
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
Slide 4
MACBETH.
Liar, and slave!
[Striking him.]
MESSENGER.
Let me endure your wrath, if’t be not so.
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH.
If thou speak’st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.—(If you are lying, you will hang from a tree until you starve. If you are telling the truth, it won’t matter if the same thing is done to me.)
Slide 5
[To himself]
I pull in resolution; and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth.(I am not so confident now that I doubt the message I was given.) “Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane;” and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.—Arm, arm, and out!—
If this which he avouches(says is true) does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.(I can’t leave or stay here.)
I ‘gin to be a-weary of the sun,
And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.—(I’m getting tired of living and wish the world would fall apart.)
Ring the alarum bell!—Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back.(at least we will die fighting.)
[Exeunt.]
The opposition forces have breached Macbeth’s castle. Macbeth comes face to face with his former ally, Macduff, the man the apparitions told him to fear.
Watch this scene from the play before reading the scene.
© 2013 William Shakespeare’s Macbeth – a MJC adaptation by Michael Lynch SHOW INTERACTIVE
Happily Ever After? Lady Macbeth Unhinged
ACT V, Scene VI
[battle drums in the background throughout]
MACBETH
… and die
On my own sword? The gashes
Look better upon them.
MACDUFF
Turn, you dog from hell! Turn!
MACBETH
[laughs]
Of all men else I have avoided thee:
But get thee back; I am too charg’d
With the blood of thine already.
I am guilty now of killing your whole family.
MACDUFF
I have no words, –
My voice is in my sword:
MACBETH
[laughs]
MACDUFF
Thou bloody villain,
Thou art too evil for words!
[shouting and swords clashing]
MACBETH
You’re wasting your time trying to wound me.
You might as well stab at the air with your sword.
Don’t you know I live a charmed life, and must not yield
To one who was woman born?
MACDUFF
Well, despair thy charm;
And let the devil that thou serve know
That I am not of woman born,
But Macduff was untimely ripp’d from his mother’s womb
Before she could bear me naturally.
MACBETH
Accursed be the tongue that tells me so!
[shouting and swords clashing]
MACBETH
Those weird sisters tricked me!
Raising up hope and then destroying it.
MACDUFF
Then yield, thee, coward,
And live to be the show like the deformed freak!
And paint of your picture on a pole with a sign:
“Here may you see the tyrant.”
MACBETH
I will not yield,
To kiss the ground at young Malcolm’s feet.
Though Birnam wood moved to Dunsinane,
Though I fight a man of no woman born,
I will fight to the last.
Then lay on, Macduff;
And damn him first that cries, “Hold, enough!”
Happily Ever After? The Undoing of Macbeth, continued
Slide 1
ACT V, Scene VII
MACBETH.
Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.(As long as they are alive, I would rather wound the enemy (“the gashes do better upon them”) than kill myself.)
[Enter Macduff.]
MACDUFF.
Turn, hell-hound, turn!
MACBETH.
Of all men else I have avoided thee:
But get thee back; my soul is too much charged
With the blood of thine already.(Go away. I have already shed enough of your family’s blood.)
Slide 2
MACDUFF.
I have no words,—
My voice is in my sword:(my sword will speak for me) thou bloodier villain
Then terms can give thee out!
[They fight.]
MACBETH.
Thou losest labor:
As easy mayst thou the trenchant air
With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed:(You are wasting your time. You can’t cut me with your sword any more than you can cut the air.)
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of women born.(Fight someone else because I cannot be defeated by someone born of a woman.)
Slide 3
MACDUFF.
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.(Forget about that charm. Let the angel who told you that tell you now that I was cut from my mother’s womb before natural childbirth.)
MACBETH.
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow’d my better part of man!(Curse your words because they have stolen my courage.)
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter(mislead by trickery) with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope!—I’ll not fight with thee.
Slide 4
MACDUFF.
Then yield thee(surrender), coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time:
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrite,
“Here may you see the tyrant.”
MACBETH.
I will not yield,(I will not surrender)
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,
And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.(taunted and cursed by low class.)
Though Birnam wood come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last.(I will fight to the end) Before my body
I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
Happily Ever After? The Undoing of Macbeth continued
Question 1
Answer the following questions to analyze the theme and characterization in the scene you have just read. Add notes to your MacbethCharacterization Graphic Organizer to record what you learn about the play. Your graphic organizer will help you answer questions on the assessment at the end of the lesson.
In the soliloquy after Macbeth learns that Lady Macbeth is dead he says life is “a tale/Told by an idiot,/full of sound and fury,/signifying nothing.” How is this different from his attitude earlier in the play?
Earlier, he was confident in this ability to commit a murder and make life worthless.
Earlier, he decided that he and Lady Macbeth were smart enough to commit the crime.
Earlier, he thought life was valuable and struggled with the idea of murdering Duncan.
Earlier, he was concerned about saving Duncan and didn’t worry about anything else.
Feedback
Question 2
The weird sisters gave Macbeth information that made him confident he could not be defeated by any living man. In this scene he says, “I pull in resolution; and begin/To doubt the equivocation of the fiend/That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnam wood/Do come to Dunsinane;” and now a wood/Comes toward Dunsinane.” Which theme is represented by these lines?
Darkness is dangerous.
Ambition unchecked can lead to corruption.
Things are not always what they seem.
Those without convictions are easily manipulated.
Feedback
Question 3
How does Macbeth react when Macduff tell him he was “from [his] mother’s womb/Untimely ripp’d”?
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