Outline for Today:
• Watch Act 3, scenes 1 – 3
• Work on Idiomatic Activities (Act 3, scenes i, ii)
– Have your paragraphs out on your desks,
I will collect these and give you feedback.
• Development of Character:
– Keeping up Appearances
– Signs of strain in Lady Macbeth and Macbeth
Activity for Act III, scene i
Act III, scene i
• Rewrite the following quotations in modern
idiomatic English:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
“There is none but he, whose being I do fear.”
“For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind.”
“…the seeds of Banquo kings .”
“Masking the business from the common eye.”
“I’ll come to you anon.”
Activity for Act III, scene ii
Act III, scene ii
• Rewrite the following quotations in modern idiomatic
English:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
“Is Banquo gone from court?”
“Why do you keep alone?”
“…these terrible dreams that shake us nightly.”
“Sleek o’er your rugged looks.”
“They are assailable.” (‘they’ = Banquo & Fleance)
Act 3 is all about
Keeping up Appearances
• On many occasions, Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth remind each other to keep up their
appearances in front of their friends and
guests.
Appearances
• Lady Mac tells Macbeth to stop worrying: “Sleek o’er your rugged
looks, be bright and jovial / Among your guests tonight”(3.2.28-29).
• Macbeth agrees that it is important to mask their insecurities: “Let
your remembrance / Both with eye and tongue; / unsafe the while,
that we / Must lave our honours in these flattering streams / And
make our faces vizards to our hearts, / Disguising what they
are”(3.2.30-35). They need to win back the people, giving
themselves good and honourable appearances through flattery, as
they are the new King and Queen.
• “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck”(3.2.45) Macbeth is
telling Lady Macbeth to appear innocent of any knowledge of the
agreement he has with the murderers, with regards to the
assassination of Banquo and Fleance. They look guilty!
Worrying
• “ ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy / Than
by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”(3.2.6-7)
– They are worrying about their actions, very
insecure because they have killed Duncan.
– Worrying leads to strain on the characters of
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who will “sleep no
more.”
Strain of a heavy conscience
• Lady Macbeth, to herself proclaims that it is easier to
have been killed than it is to live in such insecurity
because they have killed Duncan.
• Macbeth complains to Lady Macbeth:
– “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!”(3.2.36).
– “Sweet remembrance; / Now good digestion wait on
appetite / And health on both”(3.3.38-39).
– He has bad dreams!
– Delusions! Later he encounters Banquo’s ghost
Treacherous
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth:
• “But in them Nature’s copy’s not eterne”(LM 3.2.38)
Nature does not hold an eternal copyright on Banquo
and Fleance.
• There’s comfort yet, they are assailable”(M 3.2.39)
Banquo and Fleance can be assaulted / attacked.
• “Things bad begun, make strong themselves by
ill”(3.2.55) Macbeth is telling Lady Mac that ill deeds
makes evil stronger with further evil.