English 10D
Macbeth Guide
Act I
Answer the following questions using complete sentences on a separate piece of
paper.
Part 1: Short answer
1. What is the witches’ prophecy to Macbeth?
2. How does Macbeth respond to the prophecy?
3. How does Lady Macbeth respond to the prophecy?
4. Why does Macbeth begin to debate his plan?
5. How does Lady Macbeth respond to Macbeth’s second thoughts?
Part 2: Long answer—choose one of the following quotations and explain what the
quote is about, and the quote’s importance to the play.
1. First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!
I.iii
2. Lady Macbeth:
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the tow, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visiting of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
I. v
3. Macbeth:
But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself.
I.vii
English 10D
Macbeth Guide
Act II
Answer the following questions using complete sentences on a separate piece of
paper.
Part 1: Short answer
1. Why does Macbeth say he has not given any thought to the witches’ prophecy?
2. Why was Lady Macbeth unable to kill the king herself?
3. What does Macbeth forget to do after killing the king?
4. What is symbolic of the blood on both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s hands?
5.Why does Macbeth say he killed the two guards at Duncan’s door?
Part 2: Long answer— choose one of the following quotations and explain what the
quote is about, and the quote’s importance to the play.
1. Macbeth: Is this a dagger which I see before me,
the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
to feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
II.i
2.Lady Macbeth: My hands are of your colour, but I shame
to wear a heart so white. [knocking within] I hear a knocking
at the south entry: retire we to our chamber:
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it then!
II.ii
3. Ross: Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man’s act,
Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock ‘tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp:
Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?
II.iv
English 10D
Macbeth Guide
Act III
Answer the following questions using complete sentences on a separate piece of
paper.
Part 1: Short answer
1. Why does Macbeth order Banquo’s death?
2. What happens to Banquo’s son?
3. What happens that destroys the Macbeth’s dinner party?
4. What do the witches decide to do to cause further mischief for Macbeth?
5. Who is now planning to try and overthrow Macbeth?
Part 2: Long answer— choose one of the following quotations and explain what the
quote is about, and the quote’s importance to the play.
1. Banquo: Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and I fear
Thou play’dst most foully for’t: yet it was said
It should not stand in they posterity,
But that myself should be the root and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them—
As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine—
Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well
And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.
III.i
2. Macbeth: But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly: better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
III.ii
English 10D
Macbeth Guide
Act IV & V
Answer the following questions using complete sentences on a separate piece of
paper.
Part 1: Short answer
1. What are the three new prophecies the witches give Macbeth when he goes to
visit them again?
2. Why does Macbeth decide to have Macduff’s wife and children killed? What does
this tell us about how Macbeth has changed over the course of the play?
3. What has Lady Macbeth begun to do at night? What does this tell us about her
state of mind?
4. How does Macbeth react to the death of Lady Macbeth? What does this tell us
about his state of mind at this point in the play?
5. How do the three prophecies from question 1 ultimately come true?
Part 2: choose one of the following quotations and explain what the quote is about,
and the quote’s importance to the play.
1. Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why then, tis
to do’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear
who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have
thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
V.i
2. Macbeth: 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 and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
V.v