Macbeth
Act Five
This icon indicates that detailed teacher’s notes are available in the Notes Page.
This icon indicates the slide contains activities created in Flash. These activities are not editable.
For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation.
1 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004
Plot summary exercise – Act Five
2 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004
Act Five, Scene One
Several key images in the play recur in Act Five, Scene
One. Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, and in her sleep she
believes her hands are stained with blood. She carries a
light with her, to avoid the dark.
The doctor calls her condition ‘unnatural’ – as are the
crimes she alludes to.
What do you think has driven Lady Macbeth mad?
Compare Lady Macbeth at this point in the play to her
character in Act Two, Scene Two.
3 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004
Act Five, Scenes Three, Four and Five
Macbeth learns of the English force but is confident that
he will not be hurt, believing that all men are born of
woman, and consequently he does not need fear them.
Meanwhile Malcolm is instructing the soldiers to
camouflage themselves with branches from Birnan Wood
in order to hide their number.
What is Macbeth’s reaction to the news that Birnan
Wood is moving?
How does Macbeth react to his wife’s death?
4 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004
Questions – Act Five, Scene Six
Answer the following questions in as much detail as
you can, using PEE when appropriate.
1. How does Macbeth react to Macduff’s announcement
that he was ripped from his mother’s womb?
2. Why do you think Shakespeare chooses not to show
us Macbeth actually being killed?
3. Malcolm ends the play calling Macbeth a ‘butcher’
and Lady Macbeth a ‘fiend-like queen’. Do you
agree?
5 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004
In the hotseat
6 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004
Quiz
7 of 7
© Boardworks Ltd 2004