This document provides extracts from Shakespeare's play Macbeth, including summaries of the plot structure and key themes. It includes scenes from Acts 1-3 that show Macbeth's rising ambition, the witches' prophecy that he will become king, his plotting to murder King Duncan with his wife, and his growing paranoia and guilt afterwards. The extracts are intended to help the reader analyze themes of ambition, betrayal, and the corrupting influence of power within the context of the overall narrative.
Web & Social Media Analytics Previous Year Question Paper.pdf
Macbeth Revision Extracts Focus on Rising Tension
1. Revision extracts Macbeth
There are no questions with these extracts.
• Read them
• Remind yourself of the different parts of the
narrative - where tension rises and where it heads
towards the climax. There are 5 Acts in total - Act 1
is the exposition, reveals characters and
establishes the dilemma. Act 1 also contain rising
tension. Act 2 contains the crisis point - the
murder, Act 3 onwards is rising tension again, Act 5
contains the denouement - tying the threads
together.
• Identify themes, motifs and methods in each
extract that relate to the whole.
3. MACBETH So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
BANQUO How far is't call'dto Forres? What are these
So wither'dand so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
MACBETH Speak, if you can: what are you?
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, thou shalt be king hereafter!
BANQUO Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
ACT Scene 3
7. MACBETH Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'dsleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,--
LADY MACBETHWhat do you mean?
MACBETH Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'dsleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'
LADY MACBETHWho was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
LADY MACBETHInfirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.
Exit. Knocking within
Act 2 Sc 2