Sunday, February 17, 2013

Macbeth ShowMes

Here is the final list of moments on this site analysed using the iPad app 'ShowMe' to analyse Macbeth (also done for Hamlet and The Great Gatsby). Click here for lots more revision resources on Macbeth.

1. Act 1 scene i - 'Fair is foul': In this famous opening scene, we see images of turbulence and confusion.

2. Act 1 scene ii - 'Disdaining Fortune': A soldier describes how Scotland has been rescued from disaster in battle by the 'worthy' and 'valiant' Macbeth.

3. Act 1 scene iii - 'supernatural soliciting': Macbeth's first soliloquy, in which he shows his fascination with the 'imperial theme'.

4. Act 1 scene vii - 'If we should fail?': This is the moment when Macbeth is 'lost', fatally weakening on the idea of murdering the King.

5. Act 2 scene ii - 'Consider it not so deeply': Macbeth returns to Lady Macbeth after the murder, and she tries to stop him obsessing over what he has seen.

6. Act 2 scene ii - 'A little water clears us of this deed': Macbeth is horrified by the sight of the blood on his hands. Lady Macbeth says that 'a little water clears us of this deed'.

7. Act 2 scene iii - 'expectation of plenty': The Porter's language hits on some of the deeper themes of the play.

8. Act 2 scene iii - 'the wine of life is drawn': Macbeth expresses in public his horror at the sight of Duncan's body.

9. Act 2 scene iv - ''Tis unnatural': Ross and an Old Man talk about the disturbing things happening in the natural world following Duncan's murder.

10. Act 3 scene i - 'To be thus is nothing': the beginning of Macbeth's soliloquy in III i, in which he expresses his fear of Banquo and of 'nothingness', and continues his precipitous moral decline.

11. Act 3 scene i - 'The worst rank of manhood': Macbeth meets two killers who will murder Banquo. Perhaps there are some similarities between these low-life characters and the new King... 

12. Act 3 scene ii - 'restless ecstasy': While Macbeth plans to have Banquo murdered, we see his sense of the nightmarish 'torture of the mind' from which he is suffering. 

13. Act 3 scene iv - 'cabined, cribbed, confined': Macbeth finds out that Fleance escaped the murderers, and he expressses his sense of being 'bound in to saucy doubts and fears.' 

14. Act 3 scene iv- 'blood hath been shed': Macbeth expresses his horror at how the dead are returning from the grave, and nothing is at 'an end' any more. 

15. Act 3 scene iv - 'strange things': Macbeth decides to seek out the 'weird sisters' and to learn more, as well as to do more.

16.  Act 4 scene i - 'be it thought and done': Macbeth decides to slaughter Macduff's family, and not to 'think' any more, but to act without conscience or rationality. 

17. Act 5 scene i - 'unnatural deeds': In the sleepwalking scene, the Doctor expresses one of the central ideas of the play.  

18. Act 5 scene ii - 'dwarfish thief': Caithness and Angus give us images of Macbeth as he approaches his inevitable doom. 

19. Act 5 scene iii - 'cure her of that': Macbeth reveals perhaps more than he planned as he asks the Doctor to 'cure' Lady Macbeth of her 'rooted sorrow'.  

20. Act 5 scene v - 'sound and fury': Macbeth expresses his final philosophical understanding of the meaninglessness of life.  

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