Macbeth Questions

The kind of questions that come up fall into three broad categories:

1. Character questions
2. Theme questions
3. Style questions

1. Characters:

The main aspects of Macbeth‘s character you need to be able to discuss are:

• External factors that lead to his downfall –LadyMacbeth&Witches.
• Internal factors that lead to his downfall – ambition & self-interest.
• Macbeth’s soliloquies
• The audience‘s reaction to and levels of sympathy for Macbeth.
• His relationship with his wife Lady Macbeth.

You must also be able to discuss the following characters:

• Lady Macbeth – as a person in her own right, her relationship with her husband & our reaction to & levels of sympathy for her.
• Duncan – as a King and as one of the “good” characters in the play.
• Banquo – as a person in his own right and as a “foil” to Macbeth.
• The Witches – their role in the play, their influence over Macbeth.
• Minor characters = Macduff, Malcolm, Edward (Kings/good guys!)

You can be asked a general question which would include a discussion of several characters. For example: “The play presents a dark and pessimistic view of humanity”.

2. Themes:

• Kingship & power (effect on Scotland)
• Good vs. Evil
• Appearance vs. Reality
• Supernatural

3. Style:

• Imagery – blood, animal & clothing imagery
• Relevance to a modern audience
• Compelling drama

Here are some specific exam questions but remember that you won’t know the exact question until you open up the exam paper. You are being asked to respond to the statement – discuss to what extent you agree and/or disagree with it. Don’t just bluntly begin by saying “I agree 100% with this statement” – this is predictable and shows an inability to offer a nuanced analysis of the play/statement. You must support all points you make by quotation from and reference to the play.

CHARACTERS:

“Ambition and self-interest are the qualities that destroy Macbeth”

“Shakespeare’s Macbeth invites us to look into the world of a man driven on by ruthless ambition and tortured by regret”

“Macbeth’s murder has horrible consequences both for Macbeth himself and for Scotland”

“Macbeth’s soliloquies are essential in order to retain audience sympathy for the central character”

“The relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth undergoes significant change during the course of the play”

“The relationship between Macbeth and his wife is ultimately a destructive one”

“Their partnership in guilt, which at the beginning of the play is a strong bond between them, gradually drives Macbeth and his wife apart, until they go down to their seperate dooms, isolated and alone”

“We feel little pity for the central characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play”

“While there are some redeeming features in the character of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is portrayed as a ruthless opportunist, whose ambition for her husband supercedes all moral considerations”

“Lady Macbeth is responsible for the fall of her husband”

“Lady Macbeth is no monster, she is a loyal though misguided wife, not without tenderness and not without conscience”

“The witches in Macbeth are malevolent creatures, who originate deeds of blood and have power over the soul”

“The witches add little to the play Macbeth”

“Banquo is a good and loyal man, but even he is not above temptation”

“Shakespeare is more interested in dramatic effects than in presenting characters who are psychologically consistent”

“The play presents a dark and pessimistic view of humanity”

“The ‘good’ characters in Macbeth are drab and uninspiring, whilst the flawed characters are absolutely fascinating”

THEMES:

“Essentially the play Macbeth is about power, it’s use and abuse”

“Kingship, with all its potential for good and evil, is a major theme in the play Macbeth”

“In the play Macbeth, evil is depicted in a far more interesting way than virtue”

“In Macbeth, Shakespeare presents us with a powerful vision of evil”

“The eternal struggle between good and evil – a struggle in which evil comes close to victory – is the central theme in the play”

“From the opening moments, the play is dominated by the themes of corruption and death”

“The theme of the supernatural adds a malevolent air of mystery to the play Macbeth”

“In the play Macbeth, appearances often mask a disturbing reality”

STYLE:

“Macbeth has all the ingredients of compelling drama”

“Centuries after it was written, the play Macbeth remains highly relevant for a modern audience”

“Choose a scene which you consider to be the most dramatic in the play and justify your choice”

“The imagery in Macbeth adds greatly to our experience of the play”

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Hamlet lecture

Here’s a link to a lecture delivered by Professor Hubert McDermott of NUIG on Hamlet.

http://katiemolloy.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-03T13_49_48-07_00

He was a lecturer of mine (many years ago!). He was also the person who told me I’d  graduated top of my class in final year so I understandably have a soft spot for the man 😉

I also came across this website recently – you can do quizzes in most subjects and for every question you get right medicine is donated to families in the developing world! It’s a lovely idea and makes you more inclined to do the quizzes.

Here’s the link – http://www.thebigtest.org/about.php there’s a quiz on Hamlet up there already.

Just to bombard you with Hamlet related info, here’s an article from the Guardian questioning Shakespeare’s authorship…http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/14/shakespeare-playwright-trevor-nunn-mark-rylance?CMP=twt_gu

That’s all for now folks 😉

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Macbeth Quotes

Important quotes scene by scene – so far we’ve completed Act 1, Act 2 & Act 3.

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Hamlet: Insane in the Membrane?

“Pure mad or not pure mad: that is the question”

First have a look at this poem by W.S Gilbert from the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:

Some men hold

That he’s the sanest, far, of all sane men –

Some that he’s really sane but shamming mad –

Some that he’s really mad but shamming sane –

Some that he will be mad, some that he was –

Some that he couldn’t be. But on the whole

(As far as I can make out what they mean)

The favourite theory’s somewhat like this:

Hamlet is idiotically sane

With lucid intervals of lunacy.

If that just confuses you even more, here are some things to consider in any discussion of whether or not Hamlet is ‘mad’:

1. Hamlet’s decision to “put an antic disposition on” is a baffling one for the audience. Throughout the play he is highly critical of those who put on a false appearance (“one may smile and smile and be a villain” “God has given you one face and you make yourselves another“) or who act hypocritically (“I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe“) yet he himself decides to put on a pretence of being crazy. We wonder why? Perhaps it is so that he can disguise his true feelings while he plots and schemes against Claudius. Ironically, this makes Claudius more – not less – suspicious. Once Hamlet decides to fake madness, he is at pains to convince us that he is simply putting on an act and it is up to us to decide as events unfold if his madness remains an act or if he truly becomes unhinged as a result of the events in which he is embroiled.
2. The breakdown of Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia is viewed by Polonius as one of the root causes for his increasingly bizarre behaviour. When Hamlet visits Ophelia in her chamber (“his doublet all unbraced, no hat upon his head“) Polonius concludes that “this is the very ecstasy of love“, that he is “mad for thy love” and he rushes off to report to Gertrude and Claudius “thy noble son is mad“. We, the audience, disagree. We know the reason why he “raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being” – he doesn’t think he can trust her. His cruel behaviour towards Ophelia in the nunnery scene leads her to conclude that he has lost it “oh what a noble mind is here o’erthrown” but we know this isn’t true. What’s really going on is that he has figured out that they are being spied upon and feels disgusted and betrayed. Ophelia is correct to conclude that his behaviour is utterly uncharacteristic but this does not mean that he is crazy – we are inclined to agree with Claudius who clarifies that “what he spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness“. Like Claudius, we the audience know more than Gertrude, Polonius & Ophelia; like him we know that “there’s something in his soul o’er which his melancholy sits on brood“.  Claudius concludes that he needs to keep a very close eye on Hamlet “madness in great ones must not unwatched go” (he casually uses the word ‘madness’ but he doesn’t really accept this as an explanation for Hamlet’s behaviour).
3. Hamlet puts on and takes off a mask of madness at will. In all of his conversations with Polonius he uses his supposed ‘madness’ as an excuse to mock and ridicule the older man – at one point he calls him a “fishmonger” (Shakespearean slang for sex addict or pimp). When talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern he claims “my wit’s diseased” and jokes that the reason behind his odd behaviour is twarted ambition (“Sir, I lack advancement“) yet earlier he admitted to them “I am but mad north-north west“. He rages against their repeated attempts to discover the root cause of his distemper (“Sblood do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe“) and in all ways behaves like a man who is not mad, but acting mad. Even Polonius, the person most convinced of Hamlet’s madness, comments “though this be madness yet there is method in’t“.
4. Hamlet’s behaviour becomes increasingly unhinged and erratic as the play progresses and we begin to wonder if he has lost touch with reality. Certainly his personality appears to have been corrupted and it is up to us to decide if his actions could use a ‘guilty but insane’ defence if he were put on trial. His desire to see Claudius burn in hell for all eternity (he wants to “trip him that his heels may kick at heaven“), his rage against his mother and obsession with her sexual appetites (“honeying and making love over the nasty sty“), his impulsive murder of the man behind the arras and flippant reaction when he discovers he has killed the wrong man (“I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room” “you shall nose him as you go up the stairs…he’ll stay til you come“) all point towards a kind of madness, yet he claims “I essentially am not in madness but mad in craft” and asks Gertrude to cover for him (which she does, claiming he is “mad as the sea and wind“). Nor does his behaviour particularly improve. His attack on Laertes (“I loved Ophelia, forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum”) could be excused if you put it down to the effect of shock at discovering that Ophelia is dead and rage that he is being held responsible but he seems utterly blind to the fact that Laertes has every reason to hate him (Hamlet says to Laertes “what is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever“). Claudius tries to separate them for his own selfish reasons suggesting that Hamlet isn’t in his right mind (“O he is mad Laertes“) and for once we are temped to agree with him. We certainly don’t think his decision to send R&G to their deaths (“he should the bearers put to sudden death, no shriving time allowed“) is a rational one and we think he has lost it completely when he claims “they are not near my conscience“. His new-found belief that he is an instrument of divine justice certainly seems (to a modern audience at least) like the ravings of a madman “heaven hath pleased it so that I must be their scourge and minister“).
5. Despite Hamlet’s “rash and bloody deeds” he has many moments where he is totally sane, in control, lucid, intelligent and wise. His realisation that he has behaved terribly to Laertes (“I am sorry that to Laertes I forgot myself, for by the image of my cause I see the portraiture of his“), his poignant musings on death in the gravedigger’s scene (“Alas, poor Yorick!…a fellow of infinite jest…where be your jibes now, your gambols, your songs?“) and reluctant acceptance of the fencing match (“thou woulds’t not think how ill’s all here about my heart”) all point to a fully sane mind. Indeed when apologising to Laertes, Hamlet for the first time seems to genuinely consider the possibility that he has indeed been driven crazy by grief (and by the burden of the task he must carry out) “what I have done…I here proclaim was madness…Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged, his madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy“. Finally, his calm demeanour in the face of death and his determination to save Horatio’s life and to avoid future strife over who will now sit on the throne (“I do prophesy the election lights on Fortinbras. He has my dying voice“) lead us to conclude that despite moments of pretend insanity (where he is acting) and temporary insanity (where he behaves like a madman) Hamlet is for the most part not mad, but rather brokenhearted in this play. Thus we can say that

   “Hamlet is idiotically sane

   With lucid intervals of lunacy”.

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Hamlet loyalty & betrayal

Hamlet is loyal to his dead daddy’s memory

But must also be loyal to his moral core

—

Gertrude is loyal to her hot new husband

But in doing so betrays the one that went before

—

Ophelia is loyal to her daddy Polonius

But in doing so betrays her true love & her heart

—

Claudius is loyal to his own selfish interests

And hides pangs of guilt cause he’s really quite smart

—

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are loyal to the Crown

But betray their old schoolfriend by spying on him

—

Leartes is loyal to his daddy’s memory

But in dealing with Claudius is really quite dim

—

Horatio is loyal to his buddy/boss Hamlet

And never betrays him unlike all the others

 —

Hamlet can’t handle the pain of betrayal

His girlfriend, his mammy and his daddy’s own brother!

—

He goes slightly mental and loses perspective

Thinks everyone is evil and just wants to die

—

Meanwhile his mammy and girlfriend Ophelia

Are so worried about him they agree to spy

—

How else will they ever discover the reason

He’s acting so strange & erratic and odd?

—

But he sees what they’re doing and feels so betrayed

As they trample all over his loyalty roughshod

—

All of this treason, deception & falseness

Makes Hamlet behave quite unlike his true self(s)

—

He wants Claudius to burn an eternity in hell

Kills Polonius, attacks Laertes, sends R&G to their deaths

—

That’s all I’ve got for you on loyalty & betrayal

My rhymes are getting ropey so I’d better stop

—

Just remember to write in a more formal style

And add plenty of quotes so your answer’s not a flop!

—

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Hamlet Appearance vs. Reality Podcasts

Here’s some podcasts based on work we did in class recently. Every pair had to produce one paragraph on different aspects of the theme of appearance versus reality. Obviously your language would need to be more formal in an essay but this should help you understand the theme. Deception is just the ‘false appearance’ part of the equation so the wording of the question would be different but your answer would be very similar (insert the word ‘deception’ instead of ‘false appearances’ each time you use it).

After I’d finished them a student (hi Laura H!) gave me a really good essay on this theme with a completely different structure and it occured to me that you need to be aware of that – you need to know that there are lots of different ways of approaching the same answer, all equally valid. The important thing is that you stay focused on answering the question and support the points you make with relevant quotations. For example, you could focus on the fact that Hamlet’s ‘madness’ causes us to constantly question whether he is putting on a false appearance, or whether circumstances have, in reality, driven him mad! Or you could include a paragraph at the end on the only character who appears to be loyal & good and who actually is in reality – Horatio. You don’t need to discuss why Horatio is hot for Hamlet (thanks Chloe!) but you can if you wish…

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Hamlet Revenge Podcasts

Here’s some podcasts based on work we did in class today. Every pair had to produce one paragraph on different aspects of the theme of revenge. Obviously your language would need to be more formal in an essay but this should help you understand the theme.

Here’s the conclusion

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Tragic Hero?

Just what is a tragic hero? Obviously someone who is ‘tragic’ has suffered a great deal and we feel sorry for them. Someone who is a ‘hero’ is someone we admire and respect. The definition of the tragic hero in literature is only slightly more complex. You need to look for the following three elements.

The tragic hero

1. commands our respect and sympathy
2. possesses some human flaw in character or judgement which partially brings about his downfall
3. recognises that he is somewhat to blame

Two other elements are worth mentioning. The first is that the consequences far outweigh the fault – in simple terms, he suffers far more than he deserves to. The second is that his suffering provokes an emotional response in the reader – the ‘tragedy’ is created because we are filled with grief & sympathy at the unfairness of what he has to endure.

If we apply this definition to Hamlet you’ll see that he

1. Immediately commands our respect & sympathy. He obeys his mother despite his disgust at her behaviour. He values honesty “I have that within which passes show”. He is grieving his dead father & attempts to come to terms with his mother’s betrayal which evokes our sympathy. He is suicidal but moral “o that the everlasting had not fixed his cannon against self-slaughter” and aware of his duty to obey the King “it is not nor it cannot come to good but break my heart for I must hold my tongue”. He is described by Ophelia as ‘honourable’ and treats Horatio as a friend rather than as a subject (proving that he has no sense of being ‘better’ than others despite his royal blood).  You then need to look at how our sympathy for him ebbs and flows however. There are moments when we struggle to accept his behaviour – for example his reaction to killing Polonius, his decision to send R&G to their deaths and his treatment of Laertes in the graveyard. However, he regains his nobility somewhat when he exchanges forgiveness with Laertes, when he finally kills Claudius, when he saves Horatio, and in the tributes paid to him by Horatio & Fortinbras. (THIS IS A SUMMARY – YOU MUST OFFER A MORE IN DEPTH ANALYSIS WITH QUOTES)
2. Possesses some human flaw in character or judgement which partially brings about his downfall. His ‘flaw’ is his procrastination, although this is a flaw we can admire. He is determined to establish Claudius’ guilt before he kills him, showing that he is a person who believes in doing the right thing. The deaths of many characters – Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude, Laertes, even R&G can be either directly or indirectly viewed as a consequence of Hamlet’s ‘delay’, his rage at his own inability to act and then his impulsive ‘rash and bloody deed’ in killing Polonius, thinking it was Claudius behind the arras. (THIS IS A SUMMARY – YOU MUST OFFER A MORE IN DEPTH ANALYSIS WITH QUOTES)
3. Recognises that he is somewhat to blame. Throughout the play Hamlet makes reference to his tendency to think rather than act. Almost all of his seven soliloquies involve deeply self-critical commentary. He cannot explain, justify, or even understand “why yet I live to say this thing’s to do”. He is filled with shame when he compares himself to Fortinbras & Laertes. Thus Hamlet absolutely recognises his flaw. (THIS IS A SUMMARY – YOU MUST OFFER A MORE IN DEPTH ANALYSIS WITH QUOTES)

The entire play dramatically presents a battle between rage & despair in Hamlet’s soul as he struggles to come to terms with the fact that he must carry out a deed which is anathema to his personality “the time is out of joint o cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right”. Thus we respect him, feel sympathy for him, recognise (as he does) his flaws and experience his death as deeply tragic yet in some ways inevitable. He ticks all the boxes so a question asking you to discuss whether or not Hamlet is a tragic hero could be fairly straightforward if you just keep these three things in mind!

You could complicate it further IF YOU WANTED TO make your answer more original.

Let’s think for a second about the idea of the anti-hero. This is a character who we ‘admire and feel sympathy for’ so that box is still ticked. What makes the antihero different is their personality – something in their character is different to our usual definition of a ‘hero’. In Hamlet’s case he doesn’t behave the way we expect the hero to behave in a revenge tragedy – we expect him to carry out his revenge quickly and unequivocally, without hesitation. Instead he examines the morality of what he must do, gets sidetracked into arguments with the women in his life, thinks long and hard about killing himself (but as with everything else he talks about, he doesn’t do it!), gives a lecture on good acting to some actors, fails to kill Claudius because he wants him to burn in hell forever, kills Polonius by accident, is sent away, makes a deal with some pirates, comes back and again gets sidetracked – this time into a fencing match which will prove fatal for all of the major characters who aren’t already dead. So his ‘flaw’ (procrastination) is also the thing which makes him more antihero than hero. If you wanted to you could describe him as a tragic antihero rather than as a typical tragic hero. Or you can stick with the simpler definition above.

Now think about this for a second. Do you like him? I find myself torn between sympathy (your mom’s a bitch) and frustration (just do it already!). Psychologists say the traits you most dislike in others are often the things you most dislike about yourself. Let’s apply that to Hamlet for a second – he annoys me because he talks about doing things instead of just doing them. Then I think about myself – I talked about doing this website for well over a year before I actually did anything about it. I keep talking about going to NY but I’ve never been. Right now I should be finalising things for the short story competition but I’m putting it off. Now think about yourself for a minute. Think about all the time you waste talking about and thinking about studying but not actually doing it! If Hamlet irritates you maybe that’s because he is so goddamned HUMAN. So weak, so flawed and so like all of us. Maybe we want our ‘heroes’ on telly, in the movies, in plays, to be more heroic and less real. Paradoxically however, the fact that he is so real, so ordinary, so flawed, so weak, so impulsive and so insecure is what makes him so fascinating, so compelling and so tragic.

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Hamlet – typical questions

It’s difficult to predict what questions will come up for the Shakespearean play. A couple of years ago a lot of multinational companies in Ireland complained that graduates were increasingly finding it difficult to critically analyse data – in other words, to think about large amounts of information and pick out what mattered. Simultaneously, concerns were raised about grade inflation – the number of people achieving high grades in school and college exams kept increasing. The population weren’t getting any cleverer, so the exams must be getting easier.

The examinations commission responded and as a result the more predictable (‘there’s always a character Q’ or ‘personal response’ in poetry) questions are disappearing. There is no need to despair however. You know plenty – you just need a strategy to pick out what matters on the day.

If you figure out how to do this then you’ll also have developed a skill that will last you a lifetime, and one which multinational corporations will be looking for when you graduate college and are looking for a job. So it’s not all a big waste of time even if it feels like that now!

First of all let’s look at the broad categories questions usually fall into.

1. CHARACTER
2. THEME
3. OPEN
4. STYLE

You must be able to discuss the following when it comes to characters:

HAMLET

• his state of mind (mostly revealed in soliloquies)
• his ‘madness’
• his delay (procrastination)
• his nobility (is he a good man?) / strengths & weaknesses
• a tragic hero or an anti-hero?
• his relationship with Claudius (the struggle between them)
• his relationship with women (Gertrude & Ophelia) & treatment of them

CLAUDIUS  (a good king? a villain? or an admirable villain?)

GERTRUDE (a good mother despite her flaws? a negative portrayal of women?)

OPHELIA (an innocent victim or a weak and foolish girl? a negative portrayal of women?)

I seriously doubt (please don’t let this come back to haunt me) they’ll ask you to discuss one of the minor characters like Polonius or Horatio, but be able to write one paragraph on each as they would be relevant in discussing good versus evil or loyalty and betrayal. You also need to be able to write one paragraph on Fortinbras and one on Laertes for the theme of revenge.

The major themes in the play are:

• Revenge (and justice)
• Good versus Evil
• Loyalty & Betrayal
• Appearance versus Reality (Deception)
• Power & Corruption

For each theme – no matter what the wording – ask yourself

1. WHO does this theme apply to?
2. HOW / WHY does this character have to deal with this issue?
3. Do they CHANGE over the course of the play?
4. Are there any SCENES which highlight this theme specifically?
5. What are our FINAL IMPRESSIONS of this issue?

Asking these questions – and being able to come up with answers yourself – is what critical analysis is all about. Also, anything you take the time to figure out for yourself sticks in your brain. Reading someone else’s ideas just isn’t quite the same!

Open questions ask you to discuss the entire play – not the plot, but your experience of watching/studying the play.

• Favourite / most dramatic scene.
• Relevance to a modern audience.
• Although Hamlet is a tragedy, it is a play with many memorable comic moments – discuss.
• Hamlet is a dark, depressing and pessimistic play – discuss.

Style questions are quite difficult and pretty rare in the new course (so far) – they ask you to look at how the play is written.

• Language & imagery.
• Dramatic function of various characters (how they make the plot more compelling).

No matter how the question is phrased on the day, you must stay calm. Keep using the words from the question and synonyms.

Write down the 5 key Q’s – 1. WHO? 2. HOW/WHY? 3. CHANGE? 4. SCENES? 5. FINAL IMPRESSIONS?

You must quickly plan your 6 paragraphs.

As you are writing, if one paragraph gets too long, turn it into two, no big deal.

Beware of just starting to write and writing until the hour is up (writing whatever comes into your head without doing any planning). This stream of consciousness approach tends to lead to waffle, plot summary and lots of irrelevant information which has nothing to do with the question.

Keep the question in your mind at all times as you write. Remember you must demonstrate that the information you are including is relevant to the question being asked.

If any of the questions above freak you out why not try to figure out what you might discuss now, rather than on the day? You don’t have to write the full essay, you could just plan your 6 paragraphs and think about what quotes you might include.

Good luck!

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Hamlet plot & some other downloads.

Here’s an easy way to remember the order of events if you’re a visual learner. It’s a montage of the major events in the play.

Download it here: Hamlet montage

You may also want to download samples for how to write introductions which respond directly to the Q asked (very very important to do this).

Download here: Hamlet sample introductions

I’ve also prepared a grid looking at whether or not Hamlet (the character rather than the play) can be considered ‘good’ but grids don’t appear properly so download it instead.

Download here: Hamlet – a noble man?

Hope the study’s going well and not driving you all demented!

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