Full Free Grade 9 GCSE Lady Macbeth essay and how to write it.
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Lady Macbeth Character Analysis: Quotes & Essay
When answering a question about any character, you’ll get top marks if you understand and explain how that character grows and improves as the story progresses.
However, a tragedy like Macbeth is different because the Tragic Hero shifts from being good to being bad. Lady Macbeth also falls from a high noble position to her doom,
Their fall is to teach audiences a lesson about life to avoid repeating their heroes’ mistakes.
Lady Macbeth’s Character Story Arc.
Your examiner will love it if you analyse how your character transforms as the story progresses.
That’s why your exam essay will have an introduction, conclusion and 3 main paragraphs. Each paragraph will explore either the beginning, middle or end of the character’s transformation. Here’s how this character develops…
BEGINNING
Lady Macbeth is presented as a noble woman and determined wife dedicated to her husband and their joint success. She plots with him and even motivates him when he feels unable to continue.
MIDDLE
Like all people, Lady Macbeth contains good and bad. Like her husband, her flaw is also hubris (extreme ambition). Killing the king unleashes guilt within her.
END
Shakespeare suggests that because Lady Macbeth lacks male cruelty, extreme guilt leads to her madness and suicide.
Lady Macbeth’s Speedy Character Storyline
Every character has a personal storyline (a story arc) that fits within the overall story. To get the highest grades, you must understand how each character functions as a tool of the writer helping them to deliver the overall message.
Like her husband, Lady Macbeth is guilty of greed as well as disobeying the will of God when she plots to kill his chosen king: Duncan. She seeks power through her husband’s status which links directly to Shakespeare’s main message about the dangers of personal ambition and respecting one’s king and God.
REVISION TIP! You won’t reach the highest grades if you don’t even know the story!
Try writing the plot points out on flashcards. jumble them up and practice putting them into the proper order so you don’t get mixed up with events in the exam.
Essay Guide: How does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth?
Writing Your Essay Introduction
In your GCSE exam, you will get a question about a character or a theme. A standard essay contains a introduction and a conclusion and a main body with a number of analytical paragraphs in it.
Typically, during an exam, you want to write three paragraphs in your main body – each paragraph can depict the beginning middle and end of each character journey and transformation.
Some of you have to write an entire essay from memory, whereas others will need to refer to an extract that you are given in the exam.
If you have an extract question, the information on this guide is still super useful. Decide where the exam extract comes from in the character’s development and use quotes from that extract to create that specific paragraph. You can then use the ideas in this guide for your other paragraphs – simple!
What To Put In Your Introduction
FORMULA for INTRODUCTIONS
Character’s Function + Writer’s Message + Story Arc = Introduction
So, what is Lady Macbeth’s Character’s Function?
She is used as a construct to warn women away from greedy ambition and interfering in the world of men.
A ‘construct’ is anything that is constructed (built for a reason) – all characters in any fictional text are designed to carry out a function.
What is the Message of the play Macbeth?
This demonstrates Shakespeare’s message about the dangers of selfish ambition and that even the most powerful should trust in fate and God.
Character Story Arc
Lady Macbeth is dedicated to her husband’s success. She motivates him to kill and, unable to cope with guilt, she becomes mad and commits suicide. (You can see this in the Story Arc section above).
Introduction example.
Here are the 3 elements combined to create an introduction. See how the colours link to the FORMULA for INTRODUCTIONS above.
Shakespeare uses Lady Macbeth to warn women to desist from greedy ambition and interfering in the world of men and to demonstrate the dangers of selfish ambition and that even the most powerful should trust in fate and God. She begins as dedicated to her husband’s success, motivating him to kill and, unable to cope with guilt, she becomes mad and commits suicide.
Writing the Main Body of your Essay.
The 3 points of your 3 essay paragraphs
Your examiner will love it if you analyse how your character transforms as the story progresses. So, your exam essay will have an introduction, conclusion and 3 main paragraphs.
Each paragraph will deal either the beginning, middle or end of the character’s transformation.
HUH?
The points of an essay link directly to the three stages of development for a character.
So, the 3 points below link back to the three stages of Lady Macbeth’s development.
Scroll back up to the section about Lady Macbeth’s Story Arc if you can’t remember.
BEGINNING
Point 1
Lady Macbeth is dedicated to her husband’s success.
MIDDLE
Point 2
Lady Macbeth depicted as suffering for her crimes
END
Point 3
Macbeth comments on the futility of his wife’s actions and her death.
These 3 points will be the first lines of each of your main paragraphs. They explain how the character changes in the three different stages of the story.
You will also see them in the first section of the 3 individual table paragraph plans below.
Paragraph Plans: Quotes and Analyses.
Paragraph 1 Plan
| Point 1 | Lady Macbeth is dedicated to her husband’s success. |
| Quote | “Come, you spirits… unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty!” Act 1 Scene 5 |
| Quote Means | Evil forces, remove my female limitations and make me cruel! |
| When? | Lady Macbeth has just received the letter from Macbeth detailing his encounter with the witches and their prophecy that he would be the future king. |
| Language Analysis | Metaphor “toe top-full” – Lady Macbeth wants to eliminate all of her female qualities. She fears that any weakness could lead to her failure – this is exactly what happens later when she does not cope mentally with her actions and commits suicide. Imperatives “come…fill” – Even though she feels disempowered as a woman, she at least feels she has the power to command the spiritual world. Pun/ Symbolism “crown” – top of the head but also symbol of queen; links to regicide and theft of the crown. |
| Writer’s Intention | – By calling on unholy evil spirits, Shakespeare positions Lady Macbeth as an evil force which makes it almost impossible for Christian Jacobean audiences to empathise with her. |
| Audience Response | – Christians would also not approve of her use of the occult. |
| Context | – Women were not allowed to study, have jobs or own property therefore women like Lady Macbeth could only express ambition through the success of their husbands. |
| Personal Response | – All powerful women are depicted as unnatural and evil. – The biased depiction of women reveals the gender inequality of the era. – Modern audiences, who may not accept the idea of the Chain of Being may view Lady Macbeth as loyal to her husband over her King. |
Paragraph 2 Plan
| Point 2 | Lady Macbeth depicted as suffering for her crimes. |
| Quote | “Out, damned spot! out … ” Act 5 Scene 1 |
| Quote Means | Go away guilt! |
| When? | A gentlewoman has called a doctor for Lady Macbeth because she is talking in her sleep and seems to be going mad. In a sleepy trance, she reveals her guilt. |
| Language Analysis | Repetition/ imperative “out”- leave me – Lady Macbeth tries to regain control of her mind without success because her hallucinations continue regardless. Pun ““damned” – has 2 meanings: [1] It expresses her anger or frustration at being plagued with guilt. [2] Links to her fate to be condemned by God to suffer eternal punishment in hell for regicide. Metaphor/ symbolism “spot”– her guilt is a permanent mark/stain that labels her as a traitor. |
| Writer’s Intention | – Signal the decline of her character. – Depict the punishment that awaits personal ambition which is a sin against God. – Depict how a woman’s nature cannot handle the guilt of taking life. Women should be life-givers therefore the murder makes her insane. |
| Audience Response | – Relieves some tension as audiences feel Lady Macbeth begins to receive justice that audiences feel she deserves. |
| Context | – Christian society should not challenge the Chain of Being – the idea that authority flows from God to the king and down through the status levels of society. Therefore society should be content with their status and never challenge those above them. Lady Macbeth challenged God when she killed the king. – Society also believed a woman’s nature was suited to giving and nurturing life and taking life therefore Lady Macbeth was unable to handle the guilt of killing her king. |
| Personal Response | – The message warning against ambition could be viewed as a form of Jacobean propaganda designed to keep society under control. Guy Fawkes had recently failed to assassinate King James I. – King James sponsored Shakespeare’s company and therefore it is unlikely that Macbeth could ever have been a play about the successful murder of a king. – However ambition is more acceptable in modern society – the modern lesson could now be about the limits of healthy ambition. |
Lady Macbeth: “When you durst do it, then you were a man ” Act 1 Scene 7 – Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s courage and ambition when he tries to back out of killing Duncan.
Paragraph 3 Plan
| Point 3 | Macbeth comments on the futility of his wife’s actions and her death. |
| Quote | “Life’s … a poor player … his hour upon the stage … Signifying nothing.” Act 5 Scene 5 |
| Quote Means | Life is a meaningless and brief acting part in God’s grand plan.. |
| When? | As Birnam Woods approach his castle, Macbeth is informed of his wife’s death. He realises the pointlessness of ambition in another soliloquy. He is killed shortly afterwards by the loyal and humble Macduff. |
| Language Analysis | Metaphor “poor player” – Life is an insignificant acting part in God’s plan (Fate). Metaphor “hour” – Life is brief and meaningless in the eternity of time. Metaphor “stage” – Life is a performance; everything has been scripted by Fate; there is no free will. Therefore both Macbeths were trying to achieve the impossible by trying to seize the crown away from God’s choice – Duncan and his son Malcolm. Short sentence “signifying nothing” – The shortness emphasises insignificance and the brevity of life. All of the Macbeths’ pain and suffering leads to nothing |
| Writer’s Intention | – Shakespeare warns wives about ambition and to stick to domestic affairs leaving politics and war to men. – Shakespeare suggests society should be grateful for what they have, trust in Fate and in God to provide. |
| Audience Response | – Audiences may feel a sense of fear around the fate that awaits anyone who challenges authority and God. – They may also understand that if the Macbeths, the most noble and brave of society failed, audiences have no chance unless God wills it. |
| Context | – Ambition and greed are tests of temptation laid down by evil that is present on earth after Adam, considered the original tragic hero, gave into temptation in the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Lady Macbeth failed this test and her madness and suicide are punishment. – Messaging like this helps King James to maintain peace because it encourages his Christian society to view dissatisfaction and suffering as a test that must be passed to gain entry to heaven. Lady Macbeth’s suicide is a Christian sin that prohibits her from entering heaven and damns her into hell. |
| Personal Response | – However, modern society is more likely to believe that fate can be changed. – It also believes that ambition is not selfish and should be encouraged in an age when class should be irrelevant. – However, the play still serves as a warning about the capacity for good and bad inside everyone and the need to make moral choices. |
Lady Macbeth: “Out, damned spot! out … ” Act 5 Scene 1 – Lady Macbeth is driven mad by her guilt after killing King Duncan.
How can I learn this information?
- Write the notes up as questions and answers in your own words.
- Then turn them into flashcards and/or practice tests.
- Learn the elements of a good answer (the headings on the left-hand side of the tables above).
- Memorise key quotes using flashcards, noting their meanings and contexts.
- Practise writing out the quotes on a piece of paper and then annotating the analysis around it to make a spider diagram. You should be able to mind map each paragraph inside 4 minutes (you would get 12 minutes in an exam to plan the whole essay).
- Read the scenes around each quote so that you know what’s going on and don’t make mistakes in the exam. As far as examiners are concerned, there’s no excuse to have not read the text.
- Use the essay plan in the guide to write out your own version of an essay.
- Make sure you know your character’s timeline.
Full written essay: How does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth?
This what the introduction and the first of the three essay paragraphs could look like with all the elements from the three plans written up.
Notice:
- How the colours link to the section headings in the tables above.
- Also not that not much extra is added.
FREE ESSAY | How does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth?
SUMMARY
That’s everything you need to know about Macbeth’s character to get a Grade 9 in GCSE English for this question.
To learn about other Macbeth characters see our other guides.
There’s a lot of information here – probably too much to remember in one go. So, bookmark this page and come back to it whenever you need a reminder when you next have to analyse something.
For more tips on analysing LANGUAGE, check out our incredible GCSE English Language Analysis | EASY Beginner’s Grade 9 Guide.
If you want to learn more about analysing STRUCTURE, visit our incredible GCSE English Structure Analysis | EASY Grade 9 Guide
Need to learn about analysing Form? Visit our incredible GCSE English Form Analysis | EASY Beginner’s Grade 9 Guide.
Keep practising, stay curious, and you’ll be well on your way to mastering analysis in no time. Happy studying!
Peace.
The Oxbridge GCSE Tutor.
