The Mocks - Not Bad...Not Good
Key points:
1. Answering the question
There always has to be a link back. I read too many paragraphs retelling the plot of the play!
The examiner will know what happens in Macbeth. Pick the key event and analyse don’t
recount.
2. A02
There generally wasn’t enough analysis of language or focus on language and structural
features. There was a lot of using quotes as part of recounting the plot.
3. Gothic Features/Concepts
You need to outline your understanding of the gothic concept at the start of the essay. What
is the supernatural? What is a Satanic Hero? Then you need to apply your
understanding to the play.
4. Wider Gothic Links/Historical references
Only one or two of you made any links to other gothic concepts, writers or characters,
meaning that there was very little AO3 and AO4 – Include ideas on Shakespeare as a
gothic writer and surely there needs to be reference to the historical context of the play!
5. Writing Enough!
2.
A02
There generally wasn’t enough analysis
of language or focus on language and
structural features. There was a lot of
using quotes as part of recounting the
plot.
This is (for me) the main problem arising
from the mock. Mainly because it is
something that the majority of you are
usually so good at.
Therefore today our objectives are:
1. To analyse quotes from the play for
language and structural features.
2. To explore links between language and
gothic concepts.
Gothic Concept
Storms - These frequently accompany important events. Flashes of lightning
accompany revelation; thunder and downpours prefigure the appearance of a
character or the beginning of a significant event (e.g. thunder precedes the entrance
of the witches in ‘Macbeth‛;)
First Witch: When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
Language feature
This quote uses equivocation to create
ambiguity. It makes the audience question the
‘battles’ that will take place. It also
foreshadows the turmoil that is about to occur
with the word ‘hurlyburly’.
Structural Features
The uses of rhyming couplets to
create the impress of music or a
traditional nursery rhyme. The
innocent sounds contrast the
disturbing images of the witches.
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest 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!'
Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers.
Act one
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose
Say, from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting?
What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on 't?
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the
time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the
innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
Today
1. Select one quote to explore as a practice.
2. Then try and quickly analyse 5 more from Act one in note
form.
3. Return to your mock questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
“How do you respond to the view that the supernatural elements in Macbeth represent
Macbeth’s own internal struggles?”
“To what extent does Shakespeare present Macbeth as a Satanic Hero?”
“To what extent does Shakespeare subvert the Gothic idea of a vulnerable heroine?”
“Explore the dramatic use Shakespeare makes of occult and supernatural elements in Macbeth.”
Write or Rewrite a paragraph/section from your mock using
the quote(s) you have analysed
4. Start to find quotes from other parts of the play that have
a link between language/structure and the gothic.
“Explore the dramatic use Shakespeare makes of
occult and supernatural elements in Macbeth.”
Shakespeare makes use of the supernatural with the immediate
introduction of the witches in Act one scene one. “First Witch:
When shall we three meet again/ In thunder, lightning, or in
rain?/Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done,/When the
battle's lost and won.” Shakespeare uses rhyming couplets to
create confusion in the audience. Whilst the speech has an airy,
musical quality it is in direct contrast to the disturbing
appearance of the witches. Also the use of equivocation in the
line ‘battles lost and won’ foreshadows the future turmoil in the
play, emphasised by the word ‘hurlyburly’, and would make the
audience question what lies ahead. Finally the gothic concept of
storms is used in the list ‘thunder, lightning or in rain.’ This
clearly suggest that important events are to come and the scene
in general acts as warning or precursor to the dramatic events of
the play.
"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?"
Act two
"That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,
What hath quenched them hath given me fire."
"Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate he should have old turning the key. Knock, knock, knock!
Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty."
"There's daggers in men's smiles."
"A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed."
"Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep!' the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
"It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night."
"The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell."
"The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatched to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamored the livelong night: some say the earth
Was feverous and did shake."
"'Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil."
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."