The Mocks - Not Bad...Not Good Key points: 1. Answering the question There always has to be a link back. I read too many paragraphs retelling the plot of the play! The examiner will know what happens in Macbeth. Pick the key event and analyse don’t recount. 2.A02 There generally wasn’t enough analysis of language or focus on language and structural features. There was a lot of using quotes as part of recounting the plot. 3.Gothic Features/Concepts You need to outline your understanding of the gothic concept at the start of the essay. What is the supernatural? What is a Satanic Hero? Then you need to apply your understanding to the play. 4.Wider Gothic Links/Historical references Only one or two of you made any links to other gothic concepts, writers or characters, meaning that there was very little AO3 and AO4 – Include ideas on Shakespeare as a gothic writer and surely there needs to be reference to the historical context of the play! 5.Writing Enough!

2.A02 There generally wasn’t enough analysis of language or focus on language and structural features. There was a lot of using quotes as part of recounting the plot. This is (for me) the main problem arising from the mock. Mainly because it is something that the majority of you are usually so good at. Therefore today our objectives are: 1.To analyse quotes from the play for language and structural features. 2.To explore links between language and gothic concepts.

First Witch: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Gothic Concept Storms - These frequently accompany important events. Flashes of lightning accompany revelation; thunder and downpours prefigure the appearance of a character or the beginning of a significant event (e.g. thunder precedes the entrance of the witches in ‘Macbeth‛;) Language feature This quote uses equivocation to create ambiguity. It makes the audience question the ‘battles’ that will take place. It also foreshadows the turmoil that is about to occur with the word ‘hurlyburly’. Structural Features The uses of rhyming couplets to create the impress of music or a traditional nursery rhyme. The innocent sounds contrast the disturbing images of the witches.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair. What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth, And yet are on 't? Say, from whence You owe this strange intelligence? or why Upon this blasted heath you stop our way With such prophetic greeting? If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers. Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, 'Hold, hold!' Act one

Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on the other. I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none. I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this. False face must hide what the false heart doth know. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under 't

Today 1.Select one quote to explore as a practice. 2.Then try and quickly analyse 5 more from Act one in note form. 3.Return to your mock questions: 1. “ How do you respond to the view that the supernatural elements in Macbeth represent Macbeth’s own internal struggles?” 2.“To what extent does Shakespeare present Macbeth as a Satanic Hero?” 3.“To what extent does Shakespeare subvert the Gothic idea of a vulnerable heroine?” 4.“Explore the dramatic use Shakespeare makes of occult and supernatural elements in Macbeth.” Write or Rewrite a paragraph/section from your mock using the quote(s) you have analysed 4. Start to find quotes from other parts of the play that have a link between language/structure and the gothic.

Shakespeare makes use of the supernatural with the immediate introduction of the witches in Act one scene one. “First Witch: When shall we three meet again/ In thunder, lightning, or in rain?/Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done,/When the battle's lost and won.” Shakespeare uses rhyming couplets to create confusion in the audience. Whilst the speech has an airy, musical quality it is in direct contrast to the disturbing appearance of the witches. Also the use of equivocation in the line ‘battles lost and won’ foreshadows the future turmoil in the play, emphasised by the word ‘hurlyburly’, and would make the audience question what lies ahead. Finally the gothic concept of storms is used in the list ‘thunder, lightning or in rain.’ This clearly suggest that important events are to come and the scene in general acts as warning or precursor to the dramatic events of the play. “Explore the dramatic use Shakespeare makes of occult and supernatural elements in Macbeth.”

Act two "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" "The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell." "That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold, What hath quenched them hath given me fire." "It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night." "Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep!' the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast." "'Tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil." "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red." "Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate he should have old turning the key. Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty." "The night has been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion and confused events New hatched to the woeful time. The obscure bird Clamored the livelong night: some say the earth Was feverous and did shake." "There's daggers in men's smiles." "A falcon, towering in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed."