Extended text: Macbeth
Respond to this essay question: Analyse techniques used to show changes in a main character or
individual in a text you have studied and why these changes were important to the text as a whole
5 paragraph Essay structure:
Introduction
Paragraph 1, 2, 3
Conclusion
First ask: How does Macbeth change during the play?
Then look at how you know he changed – this is revealed by the way Shakespeare uses techniques within
the play to let us know what kind of person Macbeth is at the beginning and then what he becomes:
imagery, soliloquies, language choice, poetry, prose
Secondly examine: why these changes were important to the text as a whole
Look at how the themes are used to
 tell us more about the characters
 show how the characters have changed
 foreshadow aspects of the plot
 let us know what kind of play this is (tragedy)
Themes and imagery in Macbeth – imagery is the words that tell us the mood and atmosphere
of the play and show us how Macbeth has changed. The imagery reveals the themes.
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Appearance and reality – people not being what they seem, being secretive, being good/not so good
Light and Dark – murder happens at night contrasts good and bad too
Clothing – not being the right person for the job
Chaos and Order – regicide disrupts the chain of being/divine right of kings
Sleep – those who murder cannot sleep as they are no longer innocent
Supernatural – placing your faith in the devil/ those who are not on the side of good is route to
disaster – prophecies rather than getting things because of moral, good reasons
Main characters
Lady Macbeth – how does her relationship with Macbeth change?
Macbeth – how does he change, how do you know?
Banquo – how is he used to show us Macbeth’s character?
Macduff – what qualities does he show that Macbeth does not?
Match the selected character up with the themes and imagery to show how Shakespeare uses the structure,
language and imagery of the play to reveal more about the characters
For example:
Theme is appearance v reality
 Appearance and reality – people not being what they seem, being secretive, being good/not so good
Set up in very first scene
Fair is foul and foul is fair Act 1 Scene 1 line 11 when the witches speak
Macbeth echoes these words with ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen’
Act 1 Scene 3 line 37
These quotes reveal that Macbeth is ‘in tune’ with the witches who embody evil. His words mimic theirs,
but later on in Act 4 Scene 1 there is a chasm between the two. The witches describe Macbeth as
“something evil” and he calls them “secret, black and midnight hags”. Shakespeare uses Macbeth’s diction,
which paraphrases the witches words, in Act 1 as a contrast with the next meeting with the witches in Act
4. The language choice is markedly different.
We are told Macbeth is a brave and valiant soldier
Brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name
Act 1 Scene 2 line16
but remember that he
Unseamed him from the nave to the chops
And fixed his head upon our battlements
Act 1 Scene 2 line22So in Act 1 Macbeth is an admirable man, channelling his bloodlust into acceptable activities. By Act 4 Sc 3,
he is so despicable that he has a mother and child murdered. Shakespeare moves from the vivid imagery of
Macbeth’s ability to kill on the battlefield, to using symbolism in the scene where the Macduff’s are
murdered. Macduff’s son symbolises innocence and this is further reinforced by his words: ” I will live the
way birds do”. This symbolically aligns the boy with the fragility of a bird.
False face must hide what the false heart doth know
Act 1 Scene 7 line 82
He is also called merciless by the captain
Macbeth lets us know that the witches have spoken what he has already been thinking
Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
Mt thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical
Shakes so my single state of man
Act 1 Scene 3 line 137
Again this is tied to imagery about
Horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs
Against the use of nature
Act 1 Scene 3 line 133
This theme is tied to imagery about light and darkness from Act 1 – the fair and foul day, then
Stars, hide your fires.
Let not light see my black and deep desires
Act 1 Scene 4 line 50
So a paragraph using these ideas might look like this: The imagery of darkness is used symbolically to
develop the idea that Macbeth is engaging on an evil, murderous path that will ultimately corrupt him.
Macbeth begins the play as a courageous, brave warrior who is modest and loyal to King Duncan. "for brave
Macbeth- well he deserves that name-" This soon changes when he meets with the witches and is told that
he will become King. Macbeth's power and "vaulting Ambition" leads him to fantisize about this. He soon
finds out that Malcolm has been named Duncan's successor and quickly decides to do something about it.
"The prince of Cumberland that is a step I must fall down or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies" He then,
without considering returning to the witches, he calls upon darkness. "Stars hide your fires let not light see
my black and deep desires" Macbeth is asking the dark to prevent the light (or Goodness) from sensing his
murderous thoughts. Shakespeare uses the dark to show that Macbeth is beginning his journey on his path
to evil and it is already corrupting him.
“Come thick night,
And pall me in the dimmest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry “Hold, hold!”
Act 1 Scene 5 line 50- Lady Macbeth
Language sets the tone too. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth appear to be an ordinary loving couple then we
hear from Lady Macbeth
Unsex me here
And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull
Of direst cruelty…
Take my milk for gall
…Come thick night,
and pall thee in the dimmest smoke of hell
Act 1 Scene 5 lines 39-
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out
Act 1 Scene 7 lines 56-58
O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife
Act 3 Scene 2 line 36
The way people speak is important. Shakespeare lets us know that Macbeth is considering his decision by
the way Macbeth’s language is structured – you have to say this slowly
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is, but what is not
Act Scene 3 lines 139-142
A paragraph on the technique of soliloquies could include this:
Shakespeare uses soliloquies to reveal what Macbeth is thinking at various stages of the play. Through this
technique, it become apparent to the audience how much Macbeth changes. At the beginning of the play,
Macbeth is prophesied to become king yet, he immediately understands that to become king he must
murder the current King Duncan, the very thought of which he makes apparent in a soliloquy “Whose horrid
image [of the murder] doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock against its ribs”. Macbeth
reasons to himself that if he were to be king, he will let chance decide “without my stir”, Macbeth decides to
let the matter run its course. The audience sees the manifestation of Macbeth’s initial guilt and fear turn
into madness in another of his soliloquies in which he imagines a dagger floating in the air before him “Is
this a dagger which I see before me? Its handle towards my hand? Come – Let me clutch thee”. After the
murder of Duncan, the guilt intensifies, “Had I died but an hour before this chance I had lived a blessed
time” Act 2 Scene 3. Macbeth at the beginning of the play is completely different to the man at the end –
by Act 5, he cannot even express pity of sympathy over Lady Macbeth’s suicide in his “tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow” soliloquy. He merely says of the woman who had the ability to inspire his
ambition in Act 2 that “she would have died hereafter”. Driven to the brink of insanity, he shows that the
power of ambition and greed will corrupt even the best of men given the opportunity. The internal conflict
within Macbeth, presented in the forms of soliloquies and monologues, helps us as the audience to
understand how the ambition Macbeth felt leads to his power and in turn his corruption. Shakespeare has
poses an important question – and one that is not limited to an audience in any particular time period;
given an opportunity for power and glory, how far would you go to achieve it?
Contrasts with Macbeth in Act 4 Scene 1 lines 115-116 when he is jumpy and starting to get paranoid
Why do you show me this? – A fourth? Start, eyes!
What, will the line stretch out to th’crack of doom?
Hold, take my sword. There’s husbandry in heaven,
Their candles are all out.
Act 2 Scene 1 5-6 Banquo talking about the dark cloudy night
‘Twas a rough night
Macbeth talking after the murder
By Act 3, he is starting to show his edginess and guilt – how do we know?
The kind of language he uses
Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfct;
Whole as marble, founded as on a rock…
But now, I am cabin’d cribb’d, confin’d, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears
Act 3 Scene 4