The Tragedy of Macbeth
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Learning Modalities Visual/Spatial Learners Throughout the reading of Macbeth, have students refer to the photo- graph of the reconstructed Globe theater on p. 295. Suggest that they envision the action as it would take place in the acting areas. 1 About the Selection In The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act I, the The Tragedy of war hero Macbeth returns home and, on the way, encounters three witches who prophesy that he will one day be king of Scotland. Seized by ruth- Macbeth less ambition and spurred on by his wife, Macbeth plans to murder King Duncan, thus setting in motion a series of events that will lead to his William Shakespeare eventual downfall. 2 Background Reading Shakespeare Many students will find Shakespeare’s language a challenge. He uses words and structures not familiar to the modern ear. This situation is less of a problem in a theater, where actors communicate meaning through their interpretation, but it does pose a problem for readers. (Underscore 1 that the richness of the language and insights into human nature make Shakespeare worth the work.) 2 Background The Elizabethans viewed the universe, in its ideal It may help students to see a per- state, as both orderly and interconnected. They believed that a great chain formance. Encourage them to watch linked all beings, from God on high to the lowest beasts and plants. They one of the recent film versions of also believed that universal order was based on parallels between different Shakespeare’s plays, to hear how the realms. Just as the sun ruled in the heavens, for example, the king ruled language sounds in performance. You in the state and the father in the family. Because everything was linked, a may also wish to listen in class to the disturbance in one area would cause a disturbance in others. In keeping Listening to Literature Audio CDs. with this concept of order, a Shakespearean tragedy shows how a tragic hero’s bad choices can disturb the whole universe. As Macbeth gets Because some words are no longer underway, notice the parallel disorders in the mind of the hero, the weather, in common use or have evolved dif- and the kingdom. ferent meanings, encourage students to refer often to the margin notes. Also, Shakespeare plays with stan- 306 � Celebrating Humanity (1485–1625) dard English word order. Suggest that students look for the subject and verb and then determine how other sentence parts fit. As with poetry, students should Accessibility at a glance read in sentences, rather than in lines. A sentence may extend over a num- Macbeth Literary Merit Shakespearean Tragedy ber of lines, so encourage students to Context 11th Century Scotland; ruling classes Lexile NP be guided by the punctuation. Language Difficult vocabulary and syntax Overall Concept Rating More challenging Level Accessible (ambition) 306 3 Reading Strategy CHARACTERS Using Text Aids DUNCAN, King of Scotland SEYTON, an officer attending on Macbeth • Read aloud the bracketed passage. MALCOLM SON TO MACDUFF } his sons • Ask students the Reading Strategy DONALBAIN AN ENGLISH DOCTOR question: Who or what are MACBETH A SCOTTISH DOCTOR Graymalkin and Paddock? How do BANQUO A PORTER MACDUFF AN OLD MAN you know? LENNOX noblemen THREE MURDERERS Answer: Graymalkin is the first ROSS of Scotland LADY MACBETH witch’s helper, a gray cat, and MENTEITH LADY MACDUFF Paddock is the second witch’s ANGUS A GENTLEWOMAN attending helper, a toad. The margin notes CAITHNESS on Lady Macbeth explain this. FLEANCE, son to Banquo HECATE SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, WITCHES • Discuss with students resources general of the English forces APPARITIONS that could contribute more insight YOUNG SIWARD, his son LORDS, OFFICERS, SOLDIERS, ATTENDANTS, or information than the included AND MESSENGERS text aids do. (Ideas might include illustrated books, videos of the play, or Internet sites that are related to Setting: Scotland; England Shakespeare, theater, or the con- cept of witches during the era.) 4 Critical Thinking Scene i. An open place. Analyze [Thunder and lightning. Enter THREE WITCHES.] • Point out to the class that Shakespeare often used rhyming FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again? couplets to end scenes. In thunder, lightning, or in rain? • Have students read lines 10–11. SECOND WITCH. When the hurlyburly’s done, Reading Strategy • Then, ask students why When the battle’s lost and won. Using Text Aids Who or Shakespeare might have chosen to what are Graymalkin and 5 THIRD WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun. end the first scene with these lines. Paddock in lines 8 and 9? Possible responses: The couplet FIRST WITCH. Where the place? How do you know? sums up the mood of the scene; SECOND WITCH. Upon the heath. 1. Graymalkin first witch’s the use of alliteration and the helper, a gray cat. THIRD WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth. rhyme make the couplet memo- 2. Paddock second witch’s rable; it makes it clear that the 1 helper, a toad. 3 FIRST WITCH. I come, Graymalkin. scene is over. 3. Anon at once. SECOND WITCH. Paddock2 calls. 1. Alarum within trumpet 5 THIRD WITCH. Anon!3 call offstage. Reading Check Answer: The witches will meet with 10 ALL. Fair is foul, and foul is fair. 4 Macbeth upon the heath, when the Hover through the fog and filthy air. [Exit.] hurlyburly’s done and when the bat- 5 Scene ii. A camp near Forres, a town in northeast Scotland. tle’s lost and won. Where, when, and with 1 [Alarum within. Enter KING DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX, whom will the witches next with ATTENDANTS, meeting a bleeding CAPTAIN.] meet? Macbeth, Act I, Scene ii ■ 307 307 6 Humanities 6 The Three Witches, 1783, by Henry Fuseli Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), a Swiss- born English artist, began as a writer, but with the encouragement of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the head of the Royal Academy of Art, he began to paint. His formal art education con- sisted of an eight-year residence in Rome, where he studied the art of the Italian master Michelangelo. His style is a combination of romanti- cism, fantasy, and the grotesque. Throughout his life, Fuseli was influ- enced by literature, especially the works of William Shakespeare. The strong composition is Copyright © 1997 Zurich Fuseli, Kunsthaus Henry 1783, enhanced by the rhythm of the three outstretched arms ending in talon- like hands. Use these questions for discussion: The Three Witches, reserved. All rights Zurich. Kunsthaus Critical Viewing 1. Read Banquo’s description of the 7 Examine Fuseli’s rendering of the witches. Does the mood he creates correspond to the mood in Act I, Scene i? Why or why not? [Connect] witches in lines 40–47 of Scene iii. Is Fuseli’s painting faithful to this KING. What bloody man is that? He can report, 2. sergeant officer. description? As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt Possible response: The witches 3. broil battle. The newest state. appear to be withered, with 4. choke their art prevent each other from swimming. choppy fingers and skinny lips, as MALCOLM. This is the sergeant2 described by Banquo. Who like a good and hardy soldier fought 5. Western Isles the Hebrides, off Scotland. 2. Does this painting give you a bet- 5 ’Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend! Say to the king the knowledge of the broil3 6. Of kerns and gallow- ter understanding of the fright felt As thou didst leave it. glasses with lightly armed by the characters upon encoun- Irish foot soldiers and heavily tering the witches? CAPTAIN. Doubtful it stood, armed soldiers. Possible responses: Yes, they As two spent swimmers, that do cling together 7. damned quarrel accursed certainly seem strange; no, they And choke their art.4 The merciless Macdonwald— cause. are merely old women, nothing to 10 Worthy to be a rebel for to that 8. Showed . whore The multiplying villainies of nature falsely appeared to favor be afraid of. Macdonwald. Do swarm upon him—from the Western Isles5 6 9. minion favorite. 7 Critical Viewing 8 Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied; And fortune, on his damnéd quarrel7 smiling, Answer: Fuseli’s shrouding of the 15 Showed like a rebel’s whore:8 but all’s too weak: witches in darkness and having them For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name— perform the same mysterious gesture Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, Vocabulary Builder captures the eerie mood of their Which smoked with bloody execution, valor (val« ßr) n. marked presence in Act I, Scene i. Like valor’s minion9 carved out his passage courage or bravery 308 ■ Celebrating Humanity (1485–1625) Witchcraft in the English Renaissance Scholars believe that one reason Shakespeare As a result, waves of hysteria over witches included witches in Macbeth is the fact that the and their supposed links to the devil sometimes king, James I, had openly expressed his belief in swept over the land. Between the fifteenth and witches. Witchcraft was a topic of controversy eighteenth centuries, thousands of people were in seventeenth-century Europe and America. convicted of being witches and executed. The The attitude toward witches and witchcraft var- most famous trials in America occurred in 1692 ied widely. in Salem, Massachusetts, where nineteen peo- Some regarded the existence of witches to ple were convicted of being witches and be nothing more than a harmless superstition. hanged. Others felt witches to be real and a source of evil that had to be wiped out. 308 8 Literary Analysis 20 Till he faced the slave; Literary Analysis Elizabethan Drama Which nev’r shook hands, nor bade farewell to him, Elizabethan Drama What • Have students read the captain’s Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops,10 offstage scene does the speech in lines 7–23.