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Study Guide for
English IV
Name:________________________________________
Period:_____________________________
Due date:_______
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Before we begin reading Macbeth, answer these questions based on the power points
we’ll watch along with the episode about Macbeth on Shakespeare Uncovered. After
we view them in class, I’ll post them on Edmodo for you to refer to if needed.
I’ll periodically check your study guide for completion as a daily grade to see that
your are keeping up with it, but you will submit the packet completed for a test
grade, too.
I. Background Information:
1. When and where did William Shakespeare live?
2. How did he make a living other than writing plays?
3. For whom did he write his plays?
4. -6. Where were they performed? _________________ Theater, which was built in
__________. Who was part owner?____________________ What happened to it in
1599?
______________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________.
7. What kinds of people attended Shakespeare’s plays?
8. Who played both male and female parts in Shakespeare’s play?
9. How did the upper-class or royal characters speak?
10.
What is that?
11. How did the lower class speak in the plays?
12. Because there was not electricity in those days, when were the plays shown?
13. How did the playwright indicate a change in scene?
14. Most of the money was spent on which aspect of the play?
15. When was Macbeth written?
16. For whom was Macbeth written?
17. Why?
18.-22. With this in mind, Shakespeare set the play in _______________________, and
had a character named _________________ in the play because _________________
believed he was a distant cousin. Also, Shakespeare included
_____________________ because of this king’s fascination with
_________________________.
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23. What do you learn about Macbeth’s character before even reading the play?
24. What do you learn about Lady Macbeth’s character?
25. Explain why you think their character types are or are not relevant today?
26. Which figures in recent history are compared to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as
seen on Shakespeare Uncovered?
Dramatic Conventions:
27. aside
28. soliloquy
29. stage directions
30. comic relief
31. Act
32. scene
Literary Devices:
33. paradox
34. tone
35. mood
36. metaphor
37. allusions
38. motif
Act I
39. What kind of mood is set in the opening scene--how does this make you, the
reader, feel about what will happen?
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40. What is the significance of the witches’ line: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”(I.i.10)?
41. What kind of literary device does Shakespeare use in the line in question #40?
42. What does the reader learn about Macbeth in scene 2?
43. What does the King hear about the Thane of Cawdor (nobleman of Cawdor)?
44. What two events does King Duncan order as a result of this news?
a.
b.
45. Describe the way in which the witches speak compared to the way the other
characters speak so far:
46. What are the witches’ prophecies for Macbeth?
47. What are the witches’ prophecies for Banquo?
48. Using the Venn diagram below, depict how Macbeth and Banquo react to the
witches’ fortunes:
49. What news does Ross bring Macbeth?
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50. In scene 4, King Duncan learns about the Thane of Cawdor’s execution. What do
King Duncan’s lines “To find the mind’s construction in the face: He was a gentleman on
whom I built An absolute trust” mean?
51. How would you describe Duncan’s character, based on the above lines?
52. Who does King Duncan appoint to be the next in line to his throne?
53. How does Macbeth react to the news?
54. What are Macbeth’s “black and deep desires”? (I.iv.51)
55. In scene 5, Lady Macbeth reads a letter that Macbeth has sent her about his
becoming Thane of Cawdor and the witches’ prophecy. After reading the letter, what
does she think/worry about Macbeth’s character?
56. Who is a special guest arriving at Inverness (Macbeth’s castle)?
57. When Macbeth arrives home, Lady Macbeth advises him to “look like the innocent
flower/But be the serpent under’t” (I.v.63-64). What does she mean?
58. What is Lady Macbeth’s attitude about their guest’s arrival?
59. How is King Duncan greeted at Inverness in scene 6?
60. Why do you think he is treated this way?
61. In scene 7, what are two reasons why Macbeth is hesitant about his plan?
a.
b.
62. How does Lady Macbeth react to Macbeth’s hesitancy?
63. Quote one or two lines that show her reaction:
64. What does Macbeth decide at the end of Act I?
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65. What does Macbeth mean when he says, “False face must hide what the false
heart doth know” (I.vii.82)
Act II
1. What time of day is it in the opening of scene 1?
2. How does Banquo react to Macbeth’s request that they have a word about the
witches’ prophecies later?
3. What does Macbeth imagine that he sees?
4. How is this hallucination symbolic?
5. What is Lady Macbeth’s signal to Macbeth that the coast is clear to murder Duncan?
6. How has Lady Macbeth cleared the way for Macbeth to commit murder?
7. Why doesn’t Lady Macbeth kill Duncan herself?
8. What does Macbeth imagine he sees before the murder?
Why/How is this significant?
9. What does Macbeth imagine he hears during the murder?
10. Macbeth is unable to return to Duncan’s chamber with the bloody daggers. Why do
you think he fears going back?
11. During the Elizabethan era when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, the people believed
that unnatural deeds caused unusual reactions in nature, both in animals and weather.
Write about one of the events in nature that is disturbed the night of Duncan’s death, as
described by Lennox or the old man.
12. Macbeth is unable to return to Duncan’s chamber with the bloody daggers. Why do
you think he fears going back?
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13. Who discovers that Duncan has been murdered?
14. Why does Macbeth say he has murdered the guards?
What is the real reason he did it?
15. Why do Malcolm and Donalbain, Duncan’s sons, leave?
Where do they go?
Donalbain--_____________ Malcolm--___________
Act III
1. How does Banquo feel about Macbeth in the opening scene?
What is the evidence?
2. Why do you think Macbeth asks about Banquo’s plans that afternoon and if he is
taking Fleance with him?
3. What can you infer about Macbeth’s changing character after seeing how he
engages in this complex plan involving professional murders (compared to his murder of
Duncan)?
4. What is a possible reason for Macbeth’s change?
5. What does Macbeth mean by this line: “To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus-” (III.i.48)
6. What are two reasons he fears Banquo?
a.
b.
7. How does Macbeth encourage the murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance?
a.
b.
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8. What can you infer about Macbeth’s changing character after seeing how he
engages in this complex plan involving professional murders (compared to his murder of
Duncan)?
9. How is this a change from her character in Act I when she finds out that Duncan will
be staying at Inverness?
10. In Shakespeare’s tragedies, a turning point usually occurs in the third act. At this
moment, something happens that moves the action ever downward to its tragic
conclusion. The turning point of Macbeth occurs in Scene 3. What is it?
List the lines spoken immediately before the turning point:
11. What happens to Fleance?
Why is this important?
12. Who does Macbeth see sitting in his place at the banquet table?
13. To whom is Macbeth talking in line 50?
In what ways are his words true?
14. How does Lady Macbeth try to cover for her husband’s behavior at the banquet?
15. After his vision of Banquo’s ghost in Scene 4, Macbeth finally accepts that “blood
will have blood.” What does that mean?
*For each of the following quotations, please identify:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Who is speaking
Who is being spoken to
Who or what is being spoken about
What the quote means
16. “Naught’s had, all’s spent, / Where our desire is got without content. / ‘Tis safer to
be that which we destroy / Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”
1.
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2.
3.
4.
17. “There the grown serpent lies. The work that’s fled / Hath nature that in time will
venom breed, / No teeth for the present.”
1.
2.
3.
4.
18. “My strange and self-abuse / Is the initiate fear that wants hard use. / We are yet
but young in deed.”
1.
2.
3.
4.
Act IV
1. In the first scene, the witches conjure three apparitions to appear and warn Macbeth
about his fate. What are each of the apparitions and what do they tell Macbeth?
Describe Apparitions
What the apparitions warn Macbeth
2. What do the eight kings represent?
3. What is Macbeth’s reaction to all these appearances?
4. What does Macbeth demand upon hearing that Macduff has fled to England?
5. Why has Macduff gone to England?
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6. Why does Lady Macduff tell her son that his father is dead?
7. Why do you think Macduff does not tell his family the reason for his trip to England?
8. What does the messenger warn Lady Macduff?
9. In scene 3, how does Macduff portray Scotland to Malcolm?
10. Why is Malcolm suspicious of Macduff?
11. What are three reasons Malcolm tells Macduff that he would not make a suitable
king of Scotland? What are Macduff’s responses to each of these reasons?
Malcolm’s reasons
Macduff’s responses
12. Why is Malcolm finally convinced of Macduff’s loyalty to Scotland?
13. What does Malcolm divulge to Macduff that he has been planning?
14. What “newest grief” does Ross reveal to Macduff and Malcolm when he comes to
England?
15. How does Macduff react to this news?
16. What does Malcolm advise Macduff to do with these feelings?
Act V.
1. What does Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking reveal about her?
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To which of Macbeth’s remarks in Act II, Scene 2 is this related? List the quote below.
2. In the sleepwalking scene, Lady Macbeth refers to many of her waking experiences.
For example, the words “One: two” may refer to the moment in Act II, Scene 1 when she
struck the bell signaling Macbeth to kill Duncan.
List three quotes from Lady Macbeth as she sleepwalks that refer to three
different waking experiences:
What Lady Macbeth says in her sleep
What it relates to in the past while she’s
awake
3. Shakespeare gave most of his tragic heroes an impressive dying speech in which he
says something significant about his own life and death. Although he did not write such
a speech for Macbeth, which speech do you think serves in the play as his dying
speech?
Why do you select this speech rather than some other one?
4. What are your reactions to the idea expressed by Macbeth that life “is a tale / Told
by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing?” Explain your response in at
least 4 sentences.
5. “Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it,” says Malcolm in Act I, referring
to the traitorous Thane of Cawdor. Malcolm also says that this Thane of Cawdor threw
away the dearest thing he owned.
How might these two statements also apply to Macbeth?
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6. The philosopher Aristotle argued that a bad man cannot be the principal character of
a tragedy. Does Shakespeare keep you from losing all sympathy for Macbeth in spite of
Macbeth’s increasing viciousness?
Why?
Was there a point at which you lost all sympathy for Macbeth?
If not, why? And if so, where?
7. Part of Macbeth’s tragedy is the fact that many of his strengths are also his
weaknesses.
What are his strengths?
Which ones work against him?
For each of the following quotations, please identify:
a.
Who is speaking
b.
Who is being spoken to
c.
Who or what is being spoken about
d.
What the quote means
8. “Not so sick, my lord, / As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, / That keep her
from her rest.”
a.
b.
c.
d.
9. “Of all men else I have avoided thee; / But get thee back; my soul is too much
charged / With blood of thine already.”
a.
b.
c.
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d.
10. “She should have died hereafter; / There would have been a time for such a
word.”
a.
b.
c.
d.