GCSE English Literature podcasts - Shakespeare's Macbeth

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast.

Jean: I'm Jean Menzies, author and ancient historian.

Carl: I'm Carl Anka, journalist and author.

Jean: We're here today to help you dive a little deeper into some of the texts in GCSE English literature.

Carl: It's worth noting that there will be spoilers in this as we look into each text as a whole. So if you're not quite finished reading, or you're not quite ready for spoilers, just come back later.

Jean: There's plenty here to get your teeth stuck into.

Carl: Now, you've clearly done something right, because you've made it here. If you want to hear all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC sounds app.

Jean: And don't forget that whilst you're in the BBC sounds app, there's loads of other things you can use to help you with your revision – full versions of some of the texts you might be studying, revision playlists, and other Bitesize podcast series to help with different subjects. In this series, we'll be covering some of the key things you need to know about Macbeth: the plot, the characters, the themes, and the language Shakespeare uses.

Carl: In this episode, we're going to look at the plot of Macbeth and I'm going to tell you something now Jean - Macbeth is my text. This is one of my favourites and I'm very excited to take a closer look at some of these key moments. Is it weird to say Macbeth is one of my favourites?

Jean: Absolutely not - there is so much to keep you hooked in this play. I completely get it.

Carl: Let's get into this one then.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Speak, if you can: what are you?
First Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee Thane of Glamis.
Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee Thane of Cawdor.
Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter.
Banquo: Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?

Carl: Right, we've stepped inside the story. And straight into Act 1 scene 3, where Macbeth has encountered three witches for the very first time. Now, Macbeth is the Thane of Glamis. And I should probably say at this point in time that a thane is a nobleman who owns land that's been given to him by the king in exchange for his military services. Macbeth is on his way home from a battle with his best friend Banquo, where they've been successful against the Norwegians. Macbeth in particular has played a huge role in that success. He’s killed someone. He chopped him from his chin down to his belly button. So yeah, very early on, we find out Macbeth is a good fighter - big, strong lad. And on the way back with him and Banquo they meet the three witches who predict a number of things, including that Macbeth will one day become the King of Scotland.

Jean: I mean, seriously, what would you do? You're heading home today and three witches stop you and tell you that one of your greatest dreams is going to come true. I mean, you think they were trying to wind you up, wouldn't you?

Carl: Yeah, it would be my first thing. But then the witches tell them a number of things. They first greet him as the Thane of Glamis, which is what he already is. And then they predict he's going to be the Thane of Cawdor, and then they say he’s gonna be the King of Scotland afterwards. They also tell him that the sons of Banquo will be king one day as well, which is interesting. He doesn't think any of these predictions will come true. The first one comes true, like that - pretty much the moment he gets home, he finds that he's gonna be made the Thane of Cawdor when King Duncan awards it to him for his victory in the battle. So then Macbeth, the cogs start turning, Macbeth begins to wonder if the other predictions will become true.

Jean: And Macbeth is an ambitious man. So for this to feel like a possibility must be really exciting for him.

Carl: Macbeth’s wife, who is referred to as Lady Macbeth, is even more ambitious and ruthless than Macbeth is. So, once when Macbeth tells her about the witches’ prophecy, Lady Macbeth is fully on board with the plan for Macbeth to become king, which also includes a little spot of murder. She says, you know, maybe you should murder Duncan, when Duncan comes around to visit Macbeth in Macbeth’s castle.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: 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.

Jean: You can’t discuss the plot of Macbeth without hearing this line - “Is this a dagger which I see before me”, one of the most famous lines of the play, and of Shakespeare's actually.

Carl: This is just at the point where Macbeth is on his way to do the deed and murder Duncan, when he sees a dagger pointing him in the direction of the king. We don't know if it's a hallucination, but moments after saying this Macbeth takes his own dagger from his belt and commits the deed. He murders Duncan. He hesitates just before he does it, but Lady Macbeth is very encouraging saying they have to go through with their plan.

Jean: Such a supportive spouse.

Carl: Of sorts…

Jean: So it's Macduff who finds Duncan murdered but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are able to use the king's guard as a cover for their crime. Meanwhile, Duncan’s sons disappear as they're scared for their lives, which means…

Carl: Dun dun dun dun dun. Macbeth becomes the King of Scotland, just like the witches said he would.

EXTRACT
Banquo: Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and I fear
Thou play'dst most foully for 't.

Carl: That extract that we just heard there - that is Banquo, Macbeth's best mate. He was there the day the witches told Macbeth about the prophecy, and he knows that everything isn't as what it seems.

EXTRACT
Banquo: And I fear Thou play'dst most foully for 't.

Carl: Now, what does that mean? You may have heard the term foul play. That is a sentence that is all about violence and murder in certain crimes. Banquo is suggesting that he's suspicious about Macbeth’s involvement in the death of King Duncan. Now, we, the audience and the reader, know that Banquo's suspicions are correct. Macbeth did do a murder - Banquo's not totally sure. And then Macbeth decides something needs to be done about it.

Jean: He does another murder, obviously, because killing people is clearly what he does now.

Carl: Yeah. The first Macbeth that you meet when the play starts, Macbeth did murders but he was doing it in service of his king in battle. And this was described as noble, and to help his country of Scotland. But now, as things progress and Duncan has been murdered, and now that Banquo has been murdered, Macbeth is entirely self-serving. He's using violence and murder to push himself forward and to put others down. The whole play of Macbeth is about how ambition and the love of power can destroy someone and those around him. Right? This is something we're hearing unfolding every single scene. Banquo was Macbeth’s best friend. But Macbeth turns against him, because Macbeth’s need for power and the need to protect his own power warps him. And there's also Lady Macbeth, who helps convince him again and again that these deadly decisions are the right things to do.

Jean: And he has changed and started committing these acts of absolute evil since he heard the witches’ prophecy. But there's reasons to think that there could be guilt there, too. I mean, one of the interpretations is that he feels so guilty that he actually sees the ghost of Banquo later on. And because he's the only one who can see him, those around him start to wonder if he's imagining it, including Lady Macbeth.

Carl: There's a decent argument to be made that he doesn't actually feel guilty at all. And that he’s driven as a consequence of his sin of killing the king. People in the Jacobean era, which is the era between 1603 and 1625, believe that what behaviour was going on was punishment for Macbeth’s sin.

Jean: Either way, the witches have a lot to answer for, but Macbeth wants to know more from them.

EXTRACT
Witches: Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Carl: And there's the other famous line: “Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.” I love this line, so so much. It's the one that a lot of people quote when you say, “Oh, I'm studying Macbeth.”

Jean: I'm not even sure everyone remembers it's from Macbeth. I mean, why would you, it's in so many other pieces of pop culture as well, but that is where it comes from. It's just a really popular line now that's synonymous with witches and spells. So Macbeth has come back to see the witches here, and they tell him three things. Beware Macduff, the Thane of Fife. None of woman born shall harm Macbeth. And Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.

Carl: Now these are slightly more complex prophecies than the first batch. Especially because two and three are supposed to be logically and physically impossible. None of woman born can harm him and a forest physically moving location, so it can hurt Macbeth makes Macbeth feel safe. Well, those things certainly can’t happen. I'm absolutely cushty. But it's the first prophecy. Beware Macduff - that comes true quite quickly, because Macbeth finds out that Macduff, Thane of Fife, has gone to join Malcolm who is Duncan’s son, in England. So what'd you think Macbeth is gonna do about this prophecy?

Jean: Yep, you've got it. He does a murder. He seizes Macduff’s castle and has his wife and children killed. This in particular feels as if it's the most brutal murder up until this point in the play. But that does not prove to be a smart move, because Macduff is quite obviously devastated, and therefore vows to have revenge.

Carl: That's the thing about Macbeth. There is so much going on all the time.

Jean: Yeah, it really all is happening. And there's still a lot more to come. Because we haven't heard from Lady Macbeth for a while. That's because her own guilt has actually started to take its toll on her and she's sleepwalking around the castle, remembering all the evil things she's done.

Carl: Although that's the same thing we said about Macbeth. Some Jacobeans will believe that guilt is happening to Lady Macbeth. And some believe that this is insanity happening to Lady Macbeth as well.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot; out, I say!

Carl: So that we just heard now, “Out, damned spot” - that is one of the most famous speeches from Lady Macbeth. It's Lady Macbeth referring to imaginary blood that she can see on her hands. She can't get away from the guilt and responsibility for all the deaths that have occurred, and she's having a breakdown. In Act 5, the final act of the play, Macbeth finds out that Lady Macbeth has died. It’s never fully explained how or why Lady Macbeth died. And Macbeth himself seems pretty resigned, uninterested. There is a small suggestion that Lady Macbeth may have taken her own life. And it's also some suggestion that basically, Macbeth doesn't care anymore. It is the tragic downfall, so we began this play with so much determination. But we know that Macbeth is all about ambition. And we know how love of power that motivated Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the beginning is detrimental to both of them in the end.

Jean: Act 5 scene 6 - Malcolm and Macduff’s invasion has begun. At this point, Macbeth still thinks he's protected by the witches' predictions, but he's wrong. When the invading army cut down the trees in Birnam wood to use as camouflage as they move to Macbeth's castle in Dunsinane, it seems as though the trees themselves are moving, and thus making the third of the witches’ latest prophecies come true.

Carl: So they said that Macbeth will never be beaten until the woods moved, and here they are. Right?

Jean: Exactly. It's such a clever way to make that come about. I absolutely love that revelation in that moment in the play.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.
Macduff: Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.

Carl: It's one of the greatest twists ever written I think, this one, because when you read it, that he can't be harmed by someone born of woman, you have no idea where Shakespeare is going with that. Are the witches lying? Are they trying to bring him down? And then Macduff answers them easily. He was from his mother's womb untimely ripped.

Jean: I know, another seriously clever way to spin that that I never could have come up with. I remember the first time I read that. And you're right. It's that moment, like when you're watching a great thriller, and it takes an unexpected turn that has you shouting at the TV. So Macduff was untimely ripped from his mother's womb. So we can assume, delivered by Caesarean rather than born of woman in the traditional sense. So he's able to kill and behead Macbeth. Malcolm becomes the new King of Scotland and we hear how accepting the witches' prophecies leads directly to Macbeth's downfall.

Carl: So, thank you for listening to Episode One of the Bitesize English literature podcast. And joining us as we explored the plot of Macbeth.

Jean: Well, there's actually still a lot more to learn. So take a listen to the rest of the episodes of the Bitesize English literature podcast on BBC Sounds to find out more. In Episode Two we'll be taking a look at some of the characters from Macbeth, particularly Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast.

Jean: We're here today to help you dive a little deeper into some of the texts in GCSE English literature.

Carl: Audio can transport you into the world of a play or a book - it can bring alive for your imagination and it really helps you remember the story and the words.

Jean: I’m Jean Menzies.

Carl: And I’m Carl Anka. And in this episode we're taking a look at some of the characters within Macbeth. Macbeth is quite a small cast of characters. Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, are the main roles. Seeing as the play is named after him. It's probably makes sense to start with the man himself. Big Mackey B - Macbeth.

Jean: You can't learn about the play Macbeth without learning about the character of Macbeth.

EXTRACT
Captain: For brave Macbeth - well he deserves that name -
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave

Jean: So we're in Act 1, scene 2 here, and this is the captain reporting back to the King of Scotland, Duncan, and his sons about the victory the Scottish troops have had against an invading force. They're describing Macbeth here and saying how he was brave Macbeth with his “brandish’d steel, which smoked with bloody execution,” describing how he had killed at the battle, beheading someone and fixing his head upon our battlements.

Carl: I think it's fair to start talking about Macbeth by saying he is a complex character - he changes throughout the course of the play. And in this introduction to him, we hear the captain really praising his bravery to Duncan, which shows at the beginning of the play, he's a warrior. He's a leader, and Macbeth is someone that you definitely want on your side when a fight goes down. Isn't that right?

Jean: Yeah, absolutely. He's the thane of Glamis when the play begins. But after this conversation with the captain, where he describes Macbeth's actions on the battlefield, Duncan immediately rewards him by making him Thane of Cawdor

Carl: And listen to the words - they're really strong verbs and adjectives, right? They really emphasise how brave Macbeth has been: “valour”, “brandished”, “smoke”, “carved”, “unseamed”, “fixed”. We get it, right – Macbeth’s a warrior.

Jean: I think we can definitely agree that he's clearly brave and the leader, the star - someone to aspire to really. Although he's also still very violent at the beginning, but that is as he fights for his king and his country. He does return to his heroic self very briefly at the end, when he faces Macduff alone and realises it's all over for him. It's just a shame that he loses that for most of the play. Things take such a turn after he meets the witches. So let's fast forward, shall we?

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

Carl: Let not light see my black and deep desires. See, this is what gave a hint of what he wants and it isn't pretty.

Jean: So this is Act 1 scene 4 - the witches have told Macbeth their predictions that he will become Thane of Cawdor, and then King of Scotland. He didn't see how either were possible. But now obviously he has been given Thane of Cawdor and so being king now doesn't actually seem unachievable.

Carl: This is another part of Macbeth’s character. His ambition in this scene, we see that he's even worried about the strength of his own ambition, as he refers to them as his “black and deep desires”, insinuating that they’re dark and hidden.

Jean: I wonder if he always is this ambitious? Like, is it something that he always thought about? Or is it the witches’ prophecies that plant this idea in his head, so that he can be more and it spirals from there?

Carl: The joy of Macbeth and the mastery of Shakespeare's writings, we'll never know for sure. Shakespeare never quite answers these questions for us. Alright. As we spoke in Episode 1, all these things are left for different interpretations. And you can come away with different learnings every single time. I think what's also important is Macbeth doesn't go directly into killing the king so he can take the crown. Right? He changed his mind a couple of times, he's unsure of himself.

Jean: Yeah, he goes back and forth a little bit. And you do wonder when you're reading or watching the play, if he might have gone the other way, and not gone ahead with killing the king if it wasn't for Lady Macbeth, who encourages him. She says herself that she doesn't know if he can do it. So she pushes him a little bit, you know, pushes those buttons that might encourage him to go on with it.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way

Jean: “Too full o' the milk of human kindness.” Even Lady Macbeth thinks he may be too kind to actually kill Duncan and become king himself.

Carl: And he does seem to tell himself this as well. He tells himself that this isn't him. It's not who he wants to be. Macbeth definitely wants to become king. But does he want it enough to murder King Duncan for it? There's a moment in Act 1 scene 7 where he talks himself out of it completely. Duncan, the king, comes to see him. And Macbeth is adamant that he's not going to do it. He's not going to kill Duncan. He's like, “Hmm I’m not gonna do it. Why would I kill the King? The King’s been really nice to me. Definitely not gonna do it.”

EXTRACT
Macbeth: We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

Jean: So he's saying there that King Duncan has honoured him of late by making him the Thane of Cawdor after the successful battle. He says it should be “worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon”. So he's explaining how he should be enjoying and basking in this new honour, not just throwing it aside so quickly.

Carl: Yeah… It doesn't last too long.

Jean: Yeah, it’s the next day, and it hasn't lasted. Especially if you've got a Lady Macbeth hanging around because she steps in. And we will look at her character in more detail shortly. But in the space of a couple of minutes, she manages to argue the case for Duncan's death. And Macbeth is once again set on murder. Lady Macbeth is incredibly persuasive. She is able to take control of the situation in such a short space of time and push Macbeth back in that direction.

Carl: Yeah. Lady Macbeth plays a huge part in the death of Duncan. And I think we hear in this moment that Macbeth himself isn't wholly a bad person. I know it's hard to take when Macbeth starts with him chopping people in half and being an absolute demon on the battlefield. But I do think we need to remember that Shakespeare wrote this play as the tragedy of Macbeth. Remember, Macbeth has good qualities in him. But it's fair to say these do change under the influence of his wife and the witches. Now, I don't want to completely blame the Lady Macbeth and the witches. Macbeth does have free will.

Jean: It's when he kills the King that he really finds himself caught in a spiral of evil. And he can't escape. He certainly is no hero now, and he'd be described as a coward rather than brave because he’s swept up into this life of murder and terrorising people as he desperately tries to cling on to power.

Carl: And he suffers from it badly. He has a really guilty conscious about it, we think - at least there's a good argument for it. After Banquo gets killed he sees Banquo’s ghost constantly. Let's have a listen.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!

Carl: So, Macbeth is king. He got what he wanted and he's achieved his ambition, but he can't control his own emotions. He feels like he's set on a path that he's on and he's paranoid and tormented by all the things he's become.

Jean: He begins as a warrior and Thane of Glamis. But his ambition leads him to betray and murder his king to take the throne of Scotland, encouraged by Lady Macbeth and the three witches, but still of his own volition.

Carl: Yes, Lady Macbeth wasn't in the bedroom when Macbeth killed Duncan. Macbeth did that. So let's talk about Lady Macbeth, shall we?

Jean: Absolutely.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: All our service
In every point twice done and then done double
Were poor and single business to contend
Against those honours deep and broad wherewith
Your majesty loads our house

Carl: Right. That extract you just heard is an introduction to Lady Macbeth and think it’s a really, really good way to understand who she is. Lady Macbeth, throughout the entire play, is more ruthless and ambitious than her husband. Right. And here, the bit you just heard is in Act 1 scene 6, where we see her welcome Duncan and the king into her home and flatter him. So Duncan is not going to suspect what Lady Macbeth’s real plan is, which is to kill him as he sleeps.

Jean: She definitely knows how to butter him up, doesn't she? She's basically saying here, if everything we have done for you could be done twice and twice again, it would still be pure and single or inadequate, as we'd say, compared to the honours that Your Majesty has given her family.

Carl: This really shows us who Lady Macbeth is. She's cunning. She's able to play a 1600s stereotypical view of the ideal and supportive wife to the outside world. But she uses it to be deceptive.

Jean: Yeah, and that's exactly what she does when Macbeth has doubts as well. She uses every trick she can to think of to make sure he carries out their plan to murder Duncan. She's the dominant one in the marriage in this case and she gets her own way. I suppose it makes sense given that back in the day, women really only had access to power through their husbands. So if she wanted it, she had to push Macbeth to do it.

Carl: Indeed. Lady Macbeth craves power and as soon as the opportunity to gain power presents itself in the form of the witches’ prophecies, Lady Macbeth has a plan in mind and nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to stop it. Lady Macbeth influences her husband by telling him that they're doing the right thing. They're not doing anything right or wrong. They're simply doing what the witches said is going to happen. And Lady Macbeth even commits a crime herself when she has to take the knives back from the murder scene and establishes an alibi.

Jean: I mean, she doesn't come across great when we're discussing her does she? She doesn't sound like someone you’d choose to be your friend. Deceptive and unusually dominant - they're not traits I necessarily look for. But she can't actually keep it up. She is all those things but it does start to unravel and whether through her guilt or as a consequence of her committing such a sin, we see her undoing unfold in front of us.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: Out, damned spot! out, I say! - One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.- Hell is murky! - Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account? - Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.

Carl: I almost, almost, feel sorry for Lady Macbeth at the “out, damned spot” scene. She goes from being someone who seems to have no conscience at all, someone tormented by her actions. By the end of things, Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, remembering all the evil things she's done. “Out, damned spot” is her trying to wash the imaginary blood from her hands in the same way she washes the blood from the daggers. She's referring directly to Duncan's murder by saying, “who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him,” which is just that incredible amount of detail. I remember the first time was at school and I studied Macbeth and I thought, should I be reading this?

Jean: Later in the scene too she also says “will these hands ne'er be clean? Because she can't wash that imaginary blood off at all. And really she's right figuratively, which means metaphorically or not in the literal sense, her hands won’t ever be clean because she holds so much responsibility for the murders in the play.

Carl: Which is a real contrast to Lady Macbeth earlier in the play when she says “a little water clears us of this deed” about Duncan's death. It shows us the change from this confident, hard woman to a woman who's now tormented by her actions.

Jean: Then she even dies a tragic death not long after this. It's even suggested that she takes her own life and her downfall precedes Macbeth's in lots of ways.

Carl: Oh indeed. It's the guilt and isolation that lead to her eventual downfall and death. And it's hard to read - both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are really interesting, complex characters. But, you know, Jean, that's the power of Shakespeare. He certainly knew how to write his characters and we've got even more to discuss in next episode.

Jean: I'm looking forward to it already. Thanks for listening to Episode Two of the Bitesize English literature podcast all about some of the characters in Macbeth.

Carl: In Episode Three, we're going to take you on a closer look through Banquo, Macduff and the witches. You can listen to us now on BBC Sounds.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast. Now, you've clearly done something right because you've made it here. If you want to hear all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC Sounds app.

Jean: And don't forget that whilst you're in the BBC Sounds app, there's loads of other things you can use to help you with your revision - full versions of some of the texts you might be studying, revision playlists and other Bitesize podcast series to help with different GCSE subjects.

Carl: I’m one of your hosts, Carl Anka, author and journalist.

Jean: And I'm Jean Menzies, ancient historian and author as well.

Carl: And in this episode, we're taking a closer look at more of the characters within Macbeth.

Jean: In this episode, we're going to find out more about the characters Banquo, Macduff and the witches. So let's get into it.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind

Jean: So that's Macbeth talking about Banquo, his best friend at the start of the play. This quote is after Macbeth has killed Duncan though and Banquo was suspicious of him. Macbeth is thinking about what it is about Banquo that worries him and says he has a “royalty of nature”.

Carl: Yes, and that means he's noble and loyal and trustworthy. In many ways Banquo is everything that Macbeth isn't. At least that's how Macbeth sees it. Right? Macbeth admits that Banquo’s a risk-taker, but also that Banquo has the wisdom to act with care. And with prior thought.

Jean: Well, Banquo is another general in the king’s army and is part of a successful battle at the beginning with Macbeth, where they're both fighting for the king. But whereas Macbeth spirals afterwards, due to the witches’ prophecy and his need for power, Banquo was nothing to do with the murder plot and doesn't lose his brave and noble character.

Carl: Banquo is there in the initial prediction, when the witches are there. Banquo could very easily fall into the same spiral that Macbeth fell into. Because Banquo’s sons are mentioned in these predictions. In fact, the witches tell Banquo that Banquo’s sons will be the heir to the throne, immediately after Macbeth. So Banquo's ambition for his children could have made him go the same murderous way, but it doesn’t at all.

Jean: No and I think it's because he's a lot more suspicious of what the witches are saying than Macbeth, and he doesn't just automatically take it as fact. He asks more questions about their motives and why they're being told this.

EXTRACT
Banquo: That trusted home
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.

Carl: Banquo realises straight away that hearing the prophecies has put a spark in Macbeth. Macbeth’s acting different since the prophecies and kindled, if you're Shakespeare, this ambitious streak within Macbeth. And Banquo is… he doesn't love it. It's his best mate, remember.

Jean: He takes a different approach to the prophecies where Macbeth, who's almost blinded by the power of the offer. If you listen to Banquo here, he refers to them as “honest trifles”, acknowledging that they are temptations that only reveal part of the truth, and that they're set as a trap for some kind of greater significance.

Carl: “To betray in deepest consequence.” Banquo is smart, that's something that's being constantly brought up throughout the play. Banquo’s sharp and aware of what's going on. He's the first one to suspect Macbeth in the murder of Duncan. And that's ultimately his undoing, as Macbeth decides to have him killed, although Banquo’s son manages to escape the murder.

Jean: Even in death that isn't the end of Banquo though - he appears to Macbeth as a ghost. And we don't really know if he's there or not - is he real or an apparition? This is a great example of how Shakespeare leaves things open to interpretation. Either way, he's used by Shakespeare to show the guilt and troubled mind that Macbeth has been left with after the murders he has committed.

Carl: I think if I had to describe Banquo, I'd say he's noble, loyal, and questioning.

Jean: I agree, an honourable man and one I've enjoyed learning more about. I wonder if you’ll feel the same about Macduff - shall we take a look at him now?

EXTRACT
Malcolm: Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honour … for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak mine own detraction

Jean: So this is King Duncan’s son Malcolm describing Macduff in Act 4, scene 3. What do we already know about Macduff?

Carl: Okay, I'm gonna do a little bit of a Macduff breakdown for you. Are you ready to grab a pen and paper if you need to jot down some notes because no one has said that this is very straightforward.So number one, Macduff is the Thane of Fife.
Number two, he's very loyal to King Duncan.
Number three. Macduff is the person who found King Duncan's body after Macbeth had murdered King Duncan.
Number four. Macduff does not trust Macbeth when Macbeth blames King Duncan's death on the servants.
Number five. Macduff becomes Malcolm's chief supporter. When Malcolm - now remember Malcolm is King Duncan’s son - runs off to England.
Number six, in the extract we've just heard, Macduff has gone to England to join Malcolm and raise an army against Macbeth.
And number seven. This obviously then makes Macduff Macbeth’s deadly enemy, which wasn't always the case. Okay, so overall, at this point, Macduff is very loyal to King Duncan and his heir, Malcolm. So he wants to help Malcolm reclaim the throne.

Jean: Yeah, a lot has happened before this moment. In fact, I think this is a great time to just pause and do a little bit of a reminder that sometimes it's really helpful to note down key characters’ names, or relisten back to moments that you need to get a bit clearer in your head. This is a complex text with a lot of characters, a lot of characters who have similar sounding names, and a lot of changes throughout so there's no harm in really taking your time to get it firmly in your head. There's also more resources on the BBC Bitesize website, which are really useful for your revision.

Now, back to Macduff. Malcolm gives us a clear idea of who Macduff is and what kind of character he has. At this point, Malcolm has been testing Macduff’s loyalty to check he’s truthful, and Macduff has absolutely proven himself to Malcolm. You know, he means it too - he isn't going to go quietly. Of course, we know that the witches' prophecies have told Macbeth to fear Macduff. But he's also been told that no one born of woman can harm him. So at this point, I don't think you see how all this is going to end. But, and we might need a drumroll here… Then we find out that Macduff was born by caesarean or as he puts it, was “from his mother's womb untimely ripp’d”, which means he is able to stop Macbeth and he does. They meet face to face on the battlefield and Macduff kills Macbeth.

Carl: It’s his destiny, isn't it? Being the person who was not born of woman, which means he can fulfil his revenge and restore Malcolm to the throne.

Jean: Part of me does always wonder as well if perhaps hearing the prophecy gives Macduff the confidence to kill Macbeth because he can see a way he fits into it.

Carl: And we've got one more character or set of characters to discuss. Jean, are you ready to meet the witches? “Double double toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubble”.

Jean: I am so ready.

EXTRACT
First Witch: Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
All Witches: Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Jean: And here they are casting a spell and adding their ingredients to their cauldron. Let's also start here by saying that there's clearly more than one of them but the witches can be seen as a single character. They're not like any other characters we meet in the play at all.

Carl: No no no not at all. They're sometimes referred to as the Weird Sisters. Their physical appearance, their style of speech, how they speak in a chant, their actions, and obviously their ability to predict the future all definitely set them apart from all the human characters in the play.

Jean: I mean, they're even meeting around a cauldron here - it is the pinnacle of evil witch stereotypes.

Carl: They're also known as being supernatural characters. They're throwing all sorts into this cauldron, right, poisoned entrails that we've just mentioned, which are internal organs of an animal, right? How do they get that? They’re casting a spell which we don't know what it's for. But the way the ingredients are described, it doesn't feel like it's a good cauldron.

Jean: No, supernatural and probably kind of evil as well. There's a real dangerous air to these characters. They are the very first characters on stage and their first line, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” sets the tone for the whole play that good and bad are going to be confused.

Carl: Indeed, we've discussed this in other episodes, particularly in Episode Two when we looked at Macbeth’s character in more detail. We also looked at how everything stems from the witches and how Macbeth is a very different character after he meets the witches compared to how he was before. And also how Macbeth chose to interpret those prophecies.

Jean: It's important to remember that they don't ever directly tell or even suggest to Macbeth that he should murder Duncan. It's just their prophecies that really plant ideas in his mind and take over.

Carl: Yeah, absolutely. Think of it as they plant a seed in Macbeth's mind with their predictions, and then they let his ambition and lust for power do the rest. This is Shakespeare's way of telling us that information is morally neutral until human beings begin to interpret them. At no point do they literally tell Macbeth to murder.

Jean: I do wonder if they know what they're doing though?

Carl: Maybe… Look, the witches are not innocent in this.

Jean: Absolutely, you're right. And that's something we see throughout with how ambiguous many of their predictions are too. Let's have a listen.

EXTRACT
Apparition: Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
Macbeth: That will never be.

Carl: So what we just heard there is one of the predictions of Macbeth, where the witches tell Macbeth to be “lion-mettled” meaning to have the courage and spirit of a lion, but not to worry about where his enemies or any plots against him because he's fine until the forest moves. This is definitely an ambiguous prediction. It's completely open to interpretation. And that's to Macbeth’s judgement.

Jean: Well, we hear Macbeth himself say “that will never be,” because when the witches tell him that he doesn't need to fear anything until a forest of trees uproot themselves and move, he feels pretty safe, because that doesn't seem like something that’s physically possible.

Carl: Yes. And to give him credit, I’d probably feel pretty safe too if they told me that. There's no chance a forest’s just going to move by itself. I’d think I'm all good if some witches told me that.

Jean: But because they tend to see what will happen and not how it will happen, this prediction does come true. In a way that Macbeth hasn't even considered, nor has the audience. The army coming to battle Macbeth all cut off branches from Great Birnam wood. And as they move together, it looks like a forest is moving towards him.

Carl: The fear Macbeth must have felt then, not only is his army moving towards him, but also that not everything is as it seems in these predictions, that he's not as safe as he thought.

Jean: Can you imagine that moment where everything you've believed so far just starts to unravel? And the witches knew what they were doing, they symbolise evil and temptation, but it was up to Macbeth to resist them, which he could have done.

Carl: He could have done, Banquo did it. That would have been a very different story.

Jean: Thanks for listening to Episode Three of the Bitesize English literature podcast all about some of the characters in Macbeth.

Carl: There's still a lot more to discuss. So please join us in the rest of these podcast episodes, available now on BBC Sounds. In Episode Four, we're gonna be diving into some of the key themes in Macbeth and boy howdy, we got some juicy ones for you.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast.

Jean: We're here today to help you dive a little deeper into some of the texts in GCSE English literature.

Carl: Audio can transport you into the world of a play or a book - it can bring it alive for your imagination. And it really helps you remember the story and the words.

Jean: I’m Jean Menzies.

Carl: And I’m Carl Anka.

Jean: In this series, we're actually heading to my neck of the woods, Scotland, to explore Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Carl: And in this episode, we're taking a close look at the themes within Macbeth. There are some key themes that really stand out within the play, we’re going to explore three of the important ones. Particularly: one, ambition and power, two the supernatural, and three, appearances and reality.

Jean: And these three themes play a huge role in the story of Macbeth. So let's just get straight into it.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

Carl: That extract you just heard is in Act 1 scene 7, where we hear Macbeth himself referring to his own “vaulting ambition”. And coming to the conclusion that it is this ambition that is really the only motivation for him in killing Duncan. He's cut off there, because Lady Macbeth enters. If she hadn't come in at that point, would Macbeth have talked himself out of it? Because we know that Lady Macbeth does indeed encourage him. It’s one of those questions that Shakespeare leaves us with.

Jean: Ambition and power is one of the fundamental themes in Macbeth. It’s the driving force behind Macbeth’s life and in terms of Macbeth’s tragic ending, it’s his greatest weakness that ultimately leads to his downfall. There's actually an ancient Greek term which describes this perfectly. And that's hamartia. Hamartia is defined as being a fatal flaw that leads to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine. And Macbeth's hamartia is definitely his ambition. Let me spell that out, just in case you want to make a note of it. It's H, A, M, A, R, T, I, A - hamartia.

Carl: I love that word. Hamartia. In some of the best ever stories, your greatest flaw is your greatest strength at the same time. The ambition that Macbeth showed on the battlefield repelling the invasion ends up being his great weakness that sees him ultimately doomed. We've spoken about Macbeth’s ambitions in other episodes before, particularly in Episode Two. We talked about Macbeth’s character, and how the witches and Lady Macbeth played a key role in spurring Macbeth on. However, the power they have over him is only possible because his ambition is already there, as shown in his reaction to the prophecies in comparison to his best mate Banquo.

Jean: Part of the conversation around ambition and power also has to be in the different types of leadership we've seen in Macbeth.

EXTRACT
Malcolm: he king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them, but abound
In the division of each several crime,
Acting it many ways.

Jean: So this is Malcolm, King Duncan’s son. And here he's testing Macduff’s loyalty by listing all the qualities needed in a king and pretending he has none. It's quite clear from the list - devotion, patience, stableness - that this doesn't describe Macbeth. Even the courage he has at the beginning is long gone. And this is now almost a list of opposite traits to what Macbeth has, showing us what a poor leader he is. He's too selfish and driven by this ambition to be an effective king.

Carl: Now, arguably, what's really interesting about this play is that Duncan isn't shown to be a great king either. Shakespeare set Macbeth in the distant past and in a part of Britain that not many people in the audience would have been familiar with. So while this play was first performed in the very early 1600s, it was actually set in the 11th century.

Jean: Yeah, Scotland is shown as wild and savage. And it's a place that has a weak king in Duncan, who needs warrior thanes to keep any control, and both kings of Scotland we see in power aren't great. Duncan almost doesn't have enough ambition or power to be a good king, whereas Macbeth has too much and that's even worse.

Carl: And we don't get to see much of Malcolm, Duncan’s son, in his role as king at the end of the play. But we do see qualities throughout the play that seem to show he strikes a balance between his two predecessors and that he will be a much fairer leader and will treat people well.

Jean: We can only hope. It feels like the people of Scotland have suffered enough during this play, so they really do deserve someone who's good at the job at this point.

Carl: Yeah. Now should we look at another theme? Maybe the supernatural?

Jean: Yes, I'm excited about this one.

EXTRACT
First Witch: Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
Second Witch: I'll give thee a wind.
First Witch: Thou'rt kind.
Third Witch: And I another.
First Witch: I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine

Jean: I find this part of Macbeth really fascinating because it's also so representative of the time. So how it would have been perceived then is really different to now. In the early 1600s, when this play was first performed, most people believed in witches, the devil, evil spirits and magic, They believed that hell was an actual place. And this caused real fear in people's day to day lives.

Carl: Yes, this is a time we've got to bear in mind that loads of innocent people, mainly women, were being executed because they were suspected of being witches.

Jean: And that actually came straight from the top, King James the Sixth of Scotland and the First of England, the first king to unite the kingdoms, himself was utterly convinced about the reality of witchcraft, and believed it was a huge danger to his life. He even published a book on this subject called Demonology in 1597. The audience who would be coming to watch this play would have been completely engaged with this topic because the anxiety around witchcraft was already so prevalent in their lives.

Carl: There's a quote we've just heard as the witches discuss the wicked acts they carry out against ordinary men and women. One of the witches describes how a sailor's wife has insulted her and now this witch is planning to take revenge. “I'll drain him dry as hay, sleep shall neither night nor day”. So these witches are planning to drain the life from him by not allowing him to sleep. These witches are definitely living up to the expectation of an audience who are already fearful of them.

Jean: Yeah, there's really not much ambiguity in terms of what kind of people they are. They're not exactly friendly. But you're right, they definitely represent the feeling towards the supernatural at the time, and those feelings of evil around it.

EXTRACT
Lennox: 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 hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.

Carl: That extract there was another way we hear how the witches are shown to be unnatural, which is through the unnatural events that followed Duncan’s murder, before they even hear the murder. This quote is from Lennox, another Scottish nobleman who we see travelling with King Duncan earlier on in the play, who speaks of an earthquake and animals behaving strangely. This is further reinforcing the notion that Duncan's murder is of supernatural influence. And also, things aren't gonna go great after this.

Jean: Shakespeare didn't just include the supernatural to appeal to his audience though, both the supernatural and witchcraft play really important roles in this play. It helps to expose the evil that's within Macbeth - and the way he handles the predictions from the witches seems to give that evil a direction. It also highlights the evil that's at work in the world already, which creates a very powerful and sinister atmosphere to the play.

Carl: It's not just the witches that represent the supernatural. Lady Macbeth calls on the dark forces to help with the task of murdering Duncan. And Macbeth, is haunted by visions of the ghost of Banquo and the dagger.

Jean: Which probably leads us very nicely into our third key theme, which is appearance and reality.

Carl: Look at that - that's a great segue from you. In Macbeth, nothing is ever quite as it seems.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes.

Jean: So, as you already said, in Macbeth things are never quite what they seem. We see characters say one thing, but actually mean the opposite. Awful, terrible actions like murder are covered up, or the blame is shifted onto someone else. A great example of this is the murder of Duncan, which is initially blamed on his sons.

Carl: And like in this scene, Macbeth sees a dagger before him. Here, Macbeth says “Mine eyes are the fools o' the other senses, or else worth all the rest”. He's saying that either his eyes aren't working correctly, or actually they’re the only thing that's working correctly.

Jean: And he says there's no such thing. It is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes. Now he's telling himself that this isn't real, and that it's the murder he's planning that's affecting his eyes and showing him this dagger.

Carl: So Macbeth sees this ghostly dagger pointing him towards Duncan's room. He also sees Banquo's ghost at the banquet. And Lady Macbeth tries to scrub imaginary blood from her hands that just won't budge. None of these things are real. But they all show us something that's going on inside these characters' minds. So they either show us how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are either suffering because they feel guilty or they're being punished for their sins.

Jean: It's another way that Shakespeare tells us that almost nothing is as it should be. And that appearances are deceptive and the reality behind them is often not nice at all. We should have known really from the first line - “Fair is foul and foul is fair” - which sets up this notion, and remember, Macbeth is King when he sees Banquo’s ghost and when Lady Macbeth sees the blood on her hands. Both of them should be happily living the life they wanted so badly they murdered for it. But that's not the reality because they now have ambition for more and they’re living with the paranoia that something may tear this all apart from them and what the consequences of their own actions might become.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.
Macduff: Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.

Carl: Nothing in Macbeth is as it seems. If I do ever one day make my film version of Macbeth, I think that's a contender for the tagline, actually, because this is another area that we see in action. The witches mislead Macbeth, or at least they make suggestions that allow Macbeth to mislead himself, thinking that he can't be harmed, and give him a false sense of security and belief in his own safety. He really has no idea what's happening until it's already happened.

Jean: The prophecies given by the witches are definitely not as they seem. To believe he can't be harmed by anyone born of a woman gives him the ultimate belief that he's safe. He's completely fine. Nothing to worry about here. Which makes sense because the audience would presumably assume the same from such a bold statement. But as we discussed, when we spoke about the witches in Episode Three, a lot of their predictions are ambiguous and therefore not what they first seem.

Carl: Imagine. “Macbeth. Nothing is what it seems.”

Jean: I'm buying a ticket right now.

Carl: Those are our three key themes from Macbeth: number one, ambition and power. Number two, the supernatural and number three, appearance and reality.

Jean: Thanks so much for listening to Episode Four of the Bitesize English literature podcast all about the key themes of Macbeth.

Carl: In Episode Five we're going to be looking at form, structure and the language used in Macbeth and you can listen to that right now on BBC Sounds.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast. Now, you've clearly done something right because you've made it here. If you want to hear all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC Sounds app.

Jean: And don't forget that whilst you're in the BBC Sounds app, there's loads of other things you can use to help you with revision - full versions of some of the texts you might be studying, revision playlists and other Bitesize podcast series to help with different GCSE subjects.

Jean: I'm Jean Menzies.

Carl: And I’m Carl Anka.

Jean: And in this episode, we're taking a closer look at the form, structure and language within Macbeth. So let's start with form. Macbeth is a dramatic play, and it's a tragedy. So let's start by looking at that a little more closely.

Carl: Before we get started here, maybe grab a pen and paper so you can make some notes if that's helpful to you.

Jean: So the earliest surviving literary explanation for tragedy came from the Greek writer, Aristotle. Now Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, born in 384 BCE, and is known as one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. So let's break down how Aristotle defined tragedy against the story of Macbeth. So Aristotle told us that tragic plays involve a protagonist who's usually of some importance, perhaps royal or of noble birth

Carl: So that's Macbeth.

Jean: Perfect. And then through the course of the play, the protagonist reveals a fatal flaw, which causes him or her to have a reversal of their fortune. And success and happiness will be replaced by failure and misery.

Carl: So Macbeth - again, is ambition his fatal flaw? Or his hamartia, which is the Greek term we learned about in Episode Four.

Jean: Exactly. The reversal of fortune is inevitable and irreversible, and tragedies often end with death at the hands of an antagonist.

Carl: Our antagonist here is Macduff.

Jean: Aristotle also tells us that a tragedy should bring up feelings of fear and pity in the audience.

Carl: I think that we can all agree that Macbeth ticks Aristotle's boxes for being a tragic play. On a very basic level, it is a story about how a good man does a lot of bad things and ends up on the wrong path. We know that Macbeth is violent in the beginning, but that violence is an act to serve and protect his king and his country. He ends up going astray by his ambition and his need for power. And that becomes his fatal flaw. That, in turn, puts him on a path toward his own destruction. Macbeth eventually does achieve his ambition to become king, but it's at the expense of not only his happiness, but his marriage, his good character, his best friend, and at the expense of his future. It does leave the audience with those feelings that Aristotle says - fear and pity. Right at the end of the play Macbeth, the man Macbeth has nothing and no one other than his crown.

Jean: It really is a great tragedy and I'm gonna go out on a limb here as an ancient historian and say the ancient Greeks would have loved it. It really does address all those points that Aristotle made and it keeps us, the audience, interested. So what about the structure? How does that work in Macbeth?

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Speak, if you can: what are you?
First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

EXTRACT
Macbeth: 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.

EXTRACT
Banquo: Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't.

EXTRACT
Witches: Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble

EXTRACT
Macduff: Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.

Carl: Now, when you hear it like that, you see how the story moves through and how it shapes as a tragedy that we were just talking about. It also shows a bit more about the structure of Macbeth, right, which is chronological order. There's no flashforwards. There's no flashbacks. We are following a story in real time. It goes from point A to point B. Each of those clips we've just heard are in order.

Jean: And as we just heard, the events in Macbeth are organised into five acts, each with a number of different scenes. But did you know that Shakespeare himself most likely didn't even organise the play this way?

Carl: I didn't really - tell me more.

Jean: So Shakespeare wouldn't have written his plays with acts and scenes. They would have just been ready to perform. In fact, it probably would have been done in 1709 by Shakespeare's first editor who made the plays more accessible to a wider audience through including acts, scenes and lists of characters.

Carl: I do know a little bit more about the five-act structures of plays. Now, this is discussed as a model by a gentleman called Gustav Freytag, a German author from the 19th century. Gustav studied classical drama and suggested that there were five stages in a tragic, dramatic structure. He wasn't the person who reworked Macbeth into five stages. But he certainly studied the how and the why of the five acts that are used. Now, the five acts in a tragic play are: exposition.

Jean: So that's Act 1. We're introduced to the main characters, the witches make their prediction. And the idea of murder begins to take shape.

Carl: Then it’s rising action.

Jean: Act 2 - Macbeth keeps changing his mind. Lady Macbeth takes control of the situation and then the key moment - King Duncan's murder.

Carl: Then you have the climax, which is the turning point for the character.

Jean: It’s so interesting, because in this case, it would be Act 3 where Macbeth is now king. Banquo is murdered, and Macduff joins Malcolm in England. And that is a turning point because things then go downhill rapidly from this point. What's the fourth stage again?

Carl: Falling action. This is the main conflict between our protagonist and antagonist. That's where it all gets established. Shakespeare has a lot of very interesting Act Fours.

Jean: So in Act 4 that is exactly what happens. Macbeth returns to the witches, Macduff’s family is murdered, and Malcolm and Macduff plan their invasion.

Carl: And this all leads to catastrophe where the protagonist is defeated by the antagonist and things return to a state of normality. So in Act 5 of Macbeth, the invasion is carried out. Malcolm becomes the king, the witches’ predictions come true. And Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both die.

Jean: So we can see why the structure of having five acts is followed and that explains how Macbeth's five acts fit into Gustav Freytag’s model.

Carl: Okay, we've given you a lot of information. So let's just pause here and take a moment. You can relisten to sections if you need to. Or just pause and grab a pen and paper, get those notes down. Remember, there's loads of resources on the BBC Bitesize website too. So take a look there for even more information on Macbeth.

Jean: Should we move on to language?

Carl: Let's do it.

EXTRACT
Duncan: What bloody man is that?

EXTRACT
Macbeth: And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood

EXTRACT
Macbeth: It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood

EXTRACT
Witch: Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: Here's the smell of the blood still.

Carl: Looking at or hearing language of any of Shakespeare's plays is an absolute treat because the man was a genius with words. Did you know that it was estimated that Shakespeare had a vocabulary of 17,000 words. That's four times more than the average educated person of the time. Shakespeare brought over 1700 new words to the English language, as well as inventing new phrases and sayings that we still use today. So, if you've ever had someone go, “it's all Greek to me”, they're quoting Shakespeare.

Jean: Oh, my goodness, I didn't even know that and I'm a Greek historian. That's brilliant. And there's also “be all and end all” or “one fell swoop”, all first appeared in Macbeth.

Carl: William Shakespeare - an absolute wizard of words.

Jean: And there’s two words that are repeated a lot in Macbeth and their meaning and use is important. Now, I think we've just made one of them pretty obvious with what we've just heard

Carl: I think there was a tiny, tiny clue. But in case anyone did miss it, one of the words is “blood”. The other one is “night”. The word “blood” is actually repeated over 40 times in the play. Not to mention the words bloody and bleeding. This is to show us a number of things. First, and probably the most obviously, this shows the violence of the setting and the action. Even at the start of the play Macbeth, the man is being described as violent, and with description of his soul in the battle as being “smoked with bloody execution”. Imagine that - literal smoke coming off his sword just covered in blood.

Jean: It's also a word that’s used to symbolise guilt. Macbeth sees a bloody dagger pointing towards King Duncan's room when he's on his way to kill him. He then worries that he won't be able to get the blood off his hands after the murder. And in Act 5, Lady Macbeth imagines that her hands are still covered in blood as she sleepwalks around, desperately trying to get it off.

Carl: Over 40 times is a lot of mentions of one word, but it's for a reason. It's a constant reminder to the reader and the audience of the full horror of what's occurred and the violent consequences of Macbeth’s actions.

Jean: And the word “night” is used as a reminder in a similar way.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

EXTRACT
Banquo: go not my horse the better,
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day

Jean: Night-time is often associated with evil and it's the same in Macbeth. Darkness is used to conceal evil deeds and assist in making these plans a reality. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both separately call the night and darkness to not only hide what they're doing from people around but also to hide their evil from heaven and their own consciousness.

Carl: Macbeth says, “Let not light see my black and deep desires: the eye wink at the hand” - so the darkness can even hide his actions from himself.

Jean: Exactly. Shakespeare uses light to symbolise hope and goodness and night to symbolise darkness and evil deeds. And there's some key moments where the evil of night really stands out. So after Macbeth kills Duncan, the sun doesn't rise and an unnatural night covers the land, which suggests that Macbeth's reign is evil and there's no goodness to be found about Macbeth being king.

Carl: He's not wrong is he? He's not wrong at all. There's also a lack of light that tends to go with the mentions of night. So on the night of Duncan’s murder, it's where Banquo notices that the candles are still out in the sky, meaning there are no stars whatsoever. Macbeth has earlier said that the stars hide your fires and when he thinks about how to become king. So it all comes together - you can see how Shakespeare was going with his lack of light and the presence of darkness in the night itself.

Jean: There is also another really practical use to this as well, when we think of when this was written and performed. In Shakespeare's days, plays were regularly performed outdoors and in the daylight. So to keep reminding the audience that some of these key scenes were meant to be happening at night was really important.

Carl: Never really thought about that one actually – it’s all really interesting. Like I said, William Shakespeare, he was a genius with words. So it's a treat to get a small insight into how and why he used the language he did.

Jean: Thanks for listening to Episode Five of the Bitesize English literature podcast all about the form, structure and language of Macbeth.

Carl: There's still a lot more to discuss. So have a listen to other episodes in this series on BBC Sounds. And be sure to share with your friends what you found useful. In Episode Six, we're gonna be diving into the dramatisation of Macbeth and the impact of casting, performance and staging as in the play. Oh, I can't wait for this one.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast. Now, you've clearly done something right because you made it here. If you wanna hear all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC Sounds app.

Jean: And don't forget that whilst you're in the BBC Sounds app, there's loads of other things you can use to help you with your revision - full versions of some of the texts you might be studying, revision playlists and other Bitesize podcast series to help with different GCSE subjects.

Carl: I’m one of your hosts, Carl Anka.

Jean: And I’m Jean Menzies. And in this episode, we're taking a closer look at the dramatisation of Macbeth. So Shakespeare's plays were obviously written to be performed, not read, so that has an impact on the way the text is interpreted and dramatised. Shall we get straight into this?

EXTRACT
Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

Carl: The best way I’ve heard to describe the difference between a novel and a play is that a novel is like a finished building. But a script for a play is more like the foundations. So for a play, the words are built on and developed by the director and the actors and then you can add in costumes, lighting, scenery, and loads more technical and artistic choices.

Jean: I love that analogy, it really works. And reading a book and watching a play are such different things. You tend to sit and read a novel on your own. But watching a play in a theatre is a shared experience with an audience, and an audience of different people all have different reactions and thoughts to what they're seeing. Those things you've just mentioned - costume, light, staging - all have a huge influence on how the audience reacts to the play.

Carl: I've seen many film adaptations of Macbeth. I would recommend Joe Macbeth, which is set in a kitchen and stars James McAvoy. I'd also recommend the film adaptation with Michael Fassbender in. That one is set pretty much like how Shakespeare wanted it to be set. So everyone's in Scotland. The witches are very otherworldly. It is shot as if Macbeth is broken by the amount of times he's gone to war. It makes a suggestion of how to become king a little bit more straightforward.There's three key areas to look at when you're thinking about the dramatisation of Macbeth. There's your casting, there's performance, and then there's the staging. So let's begin this discussion by talking about the casting.

Jean: So casting is one of the first and potentially most important jobs a director has to do. Shakespeare gives very little information about how his characters should look. So directors have a lot of freedom when casting their actors in Macbeth. It really does depend on how they interpret the different characters. And so much freedom must be a real dream for a director, I think.

Carl: When I was a bit younger I went to film school, and one of my teachers said that if you're going to make a film, if you want to be a film director one day, you should always try and do an adaptation of Macbeth. There's going to be loads of things to think about in terms of getting the right combination of actors together, because we need to believe that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth work together as a couple. You also need to understand Banquo and Macbeth are best friends who both fight together in King Duncan's army, so they need to be similar ages. And you also need to think that King Duncan might be an older character because he has at least one adult son in Malcolm.

Jean: That's true, although all the characters in Macbeth are open to some interpretation, and that seems to affect the portrayal of the witches the most. They are the very first people to appear on stage, so they set the tone for the whole play. Traditionally, they've been presented as sinister old women, but there's been a whole host of interpretations from directors who've taken on Macbeth: they've been three men, nuns, vampires, aliens and even three personalities in one body.

Carl: Remember that adaptation in the restaurant I keep telling you about? In there, the witches were played by three binmen.

Jean: Love it.

EXTRACT
First Witch: Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
Second Witch: I'll give thee a wind.
First Witch: Thou'rt kind.
Third Witch: And I another.
First Witch: I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se'nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine

Carl: Directors aren't limited to three in the witches either. In one performance, there were 13 witches with the actors who played other parts also taking on the role of a witch to show how evil affects everyone in the play.

Jean: I love that interpretation. That's a really good one actually, I'd love to see that. Emphasising the evil throughout the characters is a clever move. Now let's talk about performance. Because once the casting choices are made, the way those characters are performed has an impact on the audience's understanding and reactions to the play.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: 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.

Jean: So this is one of the most well-known and memorable moments and lines from Macbeth. “Is this a dagger which I see before me.” There's a lot of people who know that line, but have no idea of the story of Macbeth or the context of the line itself.

Carl: And actually, that line can be performed in a number of ways, particularly because it's a hallucination. And it's a moment in Macbeth that really allows for interpretation of what Macbeth the character is thinking. Shall we have a go?

Jean: Oh, is this a dagger which I see before me?

Carl: Is this a dagger? Which I see before me?

Jean: Is this a dagger I see before me?

Carl: Is this a dagger I see before me?

Jean: The American Macbeth.

Carl: Loads of different interpretations.

Jean: Watching a production of Macbeth can really help an audience to understand the characters better. Actors and directors have to know everything about the character, so they can know what motivates them, and why the character behaves the way they do. So they can convey that to the audience.

Carl: I mentioned earlier that I've seen a lot of different adaptations of Macbeth, and I've seen it set in a restaurant. I've seen it set between ganglands in 1930s Chicago. I've also seen more classic tellings of the story. And so much hangs on performance. Different actors deliver key lines differently, and they suggest something about a character or a theme that you haven't thought of before. So I once watched one where a certain actor Michael Fassbender delivered the line of “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” as a man who only knows warfare.

Jean: In contrast, the first ever time I saw Macbeth performed live was on a bouncy castle. It was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and an alternative theatre troupe had decided to take Shakespeare's Scottish play to the bouncy castle stage and use bouncy or blow-up weapons and naturally the tone entirely shifted. It became this weirdly violent comedy.

Carl: Yeah, I think it's always good to see a few different productions which helps you make up your own mind about what you think Shakespeare is saying. It also shows you the genius of Shakespeare – it allows for stories and big ideas to become relatable for multiple audiences. I've seen Macbeth in the form of a cartoon before.

Jean: Then at the same time as working on the characters and performance the director will also begin to think about lighting, sound and costume to be added to the scene to accentuate the decisions they've made. Which means it probably makes sense to discuss the staging now.

EXTRACT
Macbeth: Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.

Carl: This is the moment at the banquet where Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost, and it's such an important decision for the directors of Macbeth as to whether or not to show Banquo's ghost on stage. I've seen a version of this where Macbeth is facing the audience and he's got Lady Macbeth to his left and he's got everyone else to his right. And Banquo appears behind him, and the audience can see it, and Macbeth turns around and sees it, but no one else turns around. I've also seen versions where Banquo just isn't there at all. And then you go, “Oh, Macbeth is truly losing it because nothing is there whatsoever”.

Jean: Yeah, and that's the thing. No one ever sees Banquo in the room, aside from Macbeth, so the option for the director is to also have the ghosts not visible to the audience, like you mentioned, to heighten Macbeth's downfall as he shouts at nothing. Or to have the ghost visible to the audience to heighten the shock of the scene. I love the idea of allowing the audience to see both perspectives. There's a lot of decisions that directors have to make aren't there, across the whole of the play, not just these key moments like this one. It kind of becomes their play as much as it is Shakespeare's: lighting, set design, sound effects, costumes, props, they all build to create a certain style of production. Some performances stay close to the Shakespearean way of staging, with a standing audience and using open spaces in daylight. Whereas other performances use a more modernised staging, in large darkened seated rooms.

Carl: There's some similarities between the theatres in Shakespearean times and the purpose to entertain. But also there were some big differences from the audiences who would eat, drink and dance and talk during performances, to the physical aspect of open-air theatre, which was the norm. I've watched Macbeth in the Globe Theatre, which is a theatre reconstructed just like Shakespeare's original theatre which is in London. And once I was told to be quiet. I also watched Macbeth in the Globe Theatre and been told to get really, really involved and to make some noise. It all depends on who’s staging it, what's going on, and what the actors are most comfortable with. That is the joy of Macbeth. For a play that reveals the supernatural and has a lot of ghosts and spirits, effects are really limited in the early 1600s. Whereas now, you've got loads more sophisticated things. You can have a massive CGI Banquo pop up to Macbeth in a dream sequence, or you could have Macbeth see absolutely nothing and still go a bit spare. Directors today have a lot more options.

Jean: It's the same with sound and lighting to the sophistication of the technology available now is worlds away from Shakespeare's times, which really opens up the options to directors now. I wonder how Shakespeare would have reacted to see some of those special effects that we can now work with.

Carl: I would truly love to be in a position to make those decisions one day. I think it's a play where you can have so much freedom to interpret the text, that you can have loads of fun with it. And I think that's a point worth making when looking at Macbeth - staging can really affect interpretation.Thank you, listener, for joining us for Episode Six of the Bitesize English literature podcast all about the dramatisation of Macbeth. As you may have heard, we're pretty keen on it.

Jean: Big fans. There's still a lot more to discuss though and in Episode Seven we're going to be exploring the context around Macbeth - when it was written and first performed and the importance of that. You can find that and all the other episodes on BBC Sounds.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast. Now, you've clearly done something right because you've made it here. If you want to get all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC Sounds app.

Jean: And don't forget that whilst you're in the BBC sounds app, there's loads of other things you can use to help you with your revision - full versions of some of the texts you might be studying, revision playlists and other Bitesize podcast series to help with different GCSE subjects.

Carl: I’m one of your hosts, Carl Anka.

Jean: And I’m Jean Menzies. In this series, we're actually heading to my neck of the woods, Scotland, to explore Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Carl: And in this episode, we're taking a closer look at the context of Macbeth, including when it was written and performed.

Jean: So Macbeth was first performed in 1606, which was only three years after King James the Sixth of Scotland also became King James the First of England, after the death of Queen Elizabeth the First. So King James was also Scottish, which might have inspired Shakespeare to set the play in Scotland in order to appeal to the new king.

Carl: And thoughts around the king and royalty play a huge part in Macbeth, which is really relevant to the time in which it was first performed. In 1605, just months before Macbeth was first performed, Guy Fawkes and other conspirators planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament to kill King James the First because they didn't think he should have been given the throne.

Jean: Remember, remember, the fifth of November - aka the Gunpowder Plot as it's now called, was uncovered and stopped. But we can see its influence on Shakespeare. And within this play, there is a strong message and warning in Macbeth about the consequences of regicide, which is another word for killing a king. Because it really was something that carried horrendous consequences. Guy Fawkes did not have a happy ending, as he was executed for his actions. And the stakes were so high because people at the time believed that monarchs were chosen by God. So the punishment was reflective of the importance of this. Remember, remember, the fifth of November?

EXTRACT
Porter: Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's
name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God's sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.

Carl: And this line you just heard from the porter shows the direct link to the gunpowder plot of the 1600s. A priest, Father Henry Garnett, was hanged for lying about his knowledge of the gunpowder conspiracy, which he pleaded that he did for God's sake. In his opening speech here, the porter appears after King Duncan had been murdered, and not yet discovered and refers to someone who had committed treason enough for God's sake.Now, for a modern-day audience, this may not mean too much. But an audience at the time when Macbeth was first performed would realise the reference within these words, and would drive home for the audience the relevance of the play and its key themes and bring everything closer to home.

Jean: And the king does play a really important part in a lot of the context for Macbeth. In the Jacobean era, the years during which James the First reigned, people believed in the divine right of kings, so they believed that the king or queen was chosen by God. So in Macbeth, when Duncan names his son Malcolm as the heir to the throne, but Macbeth then takes the crown after Duncan's death, to the audience at the time that would mean that Macbeth had taken what God had intended for Malcolm.

Carl: Basically, that would have been taken as Macbeth having gone against God, and any punishment or consequence would have been completely justified.

Jean: Exactly. It also makes regicide a sin as well as a crime, which reflects the conversations we've had in earlier episodes including Episode Two, if you want to go back and relisten - about Macbeth's hallucinations and whether they are caused by guilt or if they're a consequence given to him due to sin.

EXTRACT
All Witches: Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Witch: Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
All Witches: Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch: Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Carl: People at that time really believed in witchcraft. King James the First himself had published a book on the subject called Demonology. So we know that when Shakespeare came to write this play, he was writing it for an audience that he knew would find the witch characters very interesting.

Jean: They'd be interested and they'd also feel immediately unsettled by them. They were feared in the Jacobean era and hundreds of innocent people, predominantly women, were arrested, questioned and often tortured to get confession. Witches were usually sentenced to hanging because they were believed to be possessed by demons, and associated with the devil. In what we've just heard, the witches are throwing so many gruesome things into their cauldron from a wolf's tooth to a baby's finger. It's really emphasising to the audience how evil and twisted these characters are supposed to be.

Carl: The witches’ prophecies lead to Macbeth committing regicide, and ruling Scotland without any divine right. This would completely link with a Jacobean view that witches work against God, and are pure evil.

Jean: So the audience must have absolutely rejoiced at the end of the play when Malcolm was crowned king then. They’d feel that God's will is restored, and everything is as it should be. So there's another piece of social and historical context I'd like to take a look at though. And that's the perception and the role of women in this era.

Carl: Good roles for witches. Good roles for Lady Macbeth…

Jean: All very negative though right?

Carl: I suppose you could get a decent role as Macduff’s wife, but she doesn't have a good ending does she?

Jean: No no, the one like sort of virtuous women is murdered.

Carl: It's almost like it's a tragedy.

EXTRACT
Lady Macbeth: What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.

Jean: So we did already discuss Lady Macbeth's character in more detail in Episode Two. But there's also some really interesting points to be made around the context of women, when this play takes place, because they had far less rights. Wives were usually not much more than property of men, and they were pretty much there to look after the men and have their babies, especially in those upper aristocratic classes.

Carl: Women definitely weren't given the rights they should have been. Lady Macbeth doesn't seem to fit this stereotypical mould of the time, which is really interesting. She has a lot of ambition over him, and she isn't afraid to show it. And as we just heard there, she does have a lot of control over Macbeth and his decisions in a way that we wouldn't expect for this time. He actually describes her as his “dearest partner of greatness”.

Jean: She even references it herself in Act 1, scene 5. She knows Macbeth is a little shaky in his resolve to murder. And she calls on spirits saying “unsex me here”. She wants the qualities associated with being a man at the time and wants to be rid of the weaknesses associated with being a woman then. However, the only way she can get that power is through her husband.

Carl: And she follows up that line by saying, “fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty”. She wants to escape the limits of stereotypical femininity, which wouldn't have allowed her to be strong or cruel or so ready and able to kill. So that's why she needs unsexing and filling from top to toe with cruelty. It's quite an ask.

Jean: Yeah, well, it's worth remembering that in the original performance of this play, the part of Lady Macbeth would actually have been played by a man. Although let's not even start on the topic of women not being able to act on the English stage until 1660. Because I think I need a whole other podcast series for that. Being the case of Lady Macbeth being played by a man would have actually probably helped emphasise the character’s masculine qualities, which could have been a consideration for Shakespeare.

Carl: I just also thought of something we should mention when we talk about this play. The fact that we've been calling it by its name, rather than what we should have been doing, because there's a curse around Macbeth. Is there not?

Jean: Oh, my God, yes, there is a curse. And I'm really concerned what's going to happen after we leave the studio.

Carl: Yes, the curse, right. It's a fairly common belief today that the play of Macbeth is cursed. Apparently, the origin of that is that a coven of witches cursed the play because Shakespeare had used real spells and incantations in it. And then a lot of accidents and issues with the first performance in 1606. And there have been stories ever since with problems that people blame on the curse. So, like we said before, in order to break or avoid the curse, you must not say the play's name. And once you leave the theatre, you have to spin three times, and then curse, and then knock on the theatre door to enter to go back in again. I did not do any of those rules the first time I saw Macbeth. So…

Jean: I was about to ask, is it only because you perform in it that you have to do these things? Or when we leave this room this evening should we do this?

[Hear a knock]

Carl: Just checking.

Jean: It does feel particularly fitting, right? Given how much of this play is based in the supernatural. Although it's not necessary to bring up the curse in your exam, because I don't think that's the kind of information about the supernatural and Macbeth the examiners are looking for. It's fun to learn about though. So thanks so much for listening to Episode Seven of the Bitesize English literature podcast all about the context of Macbeth.

Carl: You can test what you've learned about Macbeth from this and all the other episodes in the Bitesize English literature podcast by adding to the final episode of this podcast for a recap quiz.
And remember, you can listen to them all on BBC Sounds whenever you like. So tell your friends if you find them useful.

Carl: Hello, and welcome to the Bitesize English literature podcast. Now, you've clearly done something right because you made it here. If you wanna hear all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC Sounds app.

Jean: And don't forget that whilst you're in the BBC Sounds app, there's loads of other things you can use to help you with your revision – full versions of some of the texts you might be studying, revision playlists and other Bitesize podcasts series to help with different GCSE subjects.

Jean: I’m Jean Menzies.

Carl: And I’m Carl Anka. And it feels like we've done all the work in the last seven episodes to make sure we feel ready to take on any questions about Macbeth, or shall we say The Scottish Play? Before we get started here, maybe grab a pen and paper so you can make some notes if that's helpful to you. We're gonna be covering subjects from all the episodes. So if there's any answers that you're not sure on, we'll be sure to let you know which episode that subject is in so you can relisten if you need to. Let’s take the test, shall we?

Jean: I'm ready. Are you ready? In this episode, we're testing everything we've learned so far with a recap quiz.

Carl: We're gonna take it in turns to ask questions about Macbeth with some possible multiple choice answers. We’re gonna give you a little bit of time to answer each question before we let you know if you gave the correct answer. Let's get started.

Jean: Okay. I'm going to jump in with question number one. Who is with Macbeth when he first meets the three witches on his way from battle? Is it Duncan, Banquo, or Macduff?

MUSIC

Jean: It is of course his best friend, Banquo. Not his best friend through the whole play, though, as he later has him killed because, standard Macbeth. If you weren't sure of that answer though have a listen to Episode One of the podcast again, where we cover the plot of Macbeth.

Carl: Alright, question number two. Listen to the following short extract where Banquo is thinking of everything that has happened so far in the play.

EXTRACT
Banquo: Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't.

Carl: Did you get all that? Right, okay. Here's your question. What key theme is most prominent in this extract? Is it option A, ambition and power, option B, the supernatural or option C, appearance and reality?

MUSIC

Carl: It was option A, ambition and power. That extract is Banquo thinking about how Macbeth's ambition has helped him to become king very quickly and gain ultimate power. And now Banquo worries about how he actually got there, and if Macbeth has played foul little bit. He does also mention the weird women. So I'll give you a bonus point if you identified the supernatural as a second theme. If you need to know more about that, or want a little bit more of a recap, head to Episode Four of the podcast to find out more about the themes of Macbeth.

Jean: Okay, question number three is all about my favourite character. And that is what is Lady Macbeth referring to when she says “out, damned spot, out” in Act 5 scene 1? Is it that Macbeth is to leave the room? Is it imaginary blood on her hands? Or is it the dagger?

MUSIC

Jean: That's right, she is referring to imaginary blood that she can see on her hands as she is sleepwalking. Whether through her guilt or as a consequence of her committing such a sin, she starts to be driven insane by it all and see blood on her hands that isn't there. For a recap on this you can head to Episode Two where we discuss more about Lady Macbeth as a character.

Carl: Alright, then. Do you remember when we told you the word blood is repeated more than 40 times in Macbeth? 40. Now, here's your question. Why do you think Shakespeare did this? Is it option A, because Shakespeare simply couldn't think of any other words? Is it option B, to emphasise to the audience the horror of what is happening and what's happened in the play? Or is it option C, in that it's only ever really important in the parts about the dagger?

MUSIC

Carl: The answer is Option B. Shakespeare used this to draw the audience's attention to the horror of what is going on in the play. It's used to show both the violence and guilt in Macbeth, Macbeth the play and Macbeth, the chap. A good example of this is Macbeth saying, “It will have blood; they say blood will have blood,” as he recalls an old saying that says bloodshed through violence sees more blood than revenge. This is Macbeth realising that he's trapped in a cycle. You can recap all of this in Episode Five of the podcast where we talk about form, structure and language.

Jean: Okay, next question. How does Shakespeare say the witches should look when casting for Macbeth?

MUSIC

Jean: Yeah, okay, that one was a little bit of a trick. Shakespeare actually gives very little information about how his characters should look. And the witches in particular are left open to interpretation for directors. That's why they're often very different in different performances, from being portrayed as identical triplets to binmen, to having a greater or fewer number than three. Now, we talked more about that and the dramatisation of Macbeth in Episode Six if you need a recap.

Carl: Hello again. I've got another extract for you. Have a little listen.

EXTRACT
First Witch: All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch: All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch: All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

Carl: Those are the three witches. Which one of their predictions comes true first?

MUSIC

CARL: I'm sorry. That was a little bit of a trick question from me, because Macbeth is already the Thane of Glamis when he hears those witches’ prophecies. However, soon after, he finds out that King Duncan is making him the Thane of Cawdor for his bravery in battle. And it's this that ignites Macbeth’s ambition for power and kickstarts off this whole trail of murders. If you want to know more about this, dear listener, go to Episode One if you want a recap on the plot of Macbeth.

Jean: Okay, time for another extract. So give this one a listen.

EXTRACT
Porter: Knock, knock! Who's there, in the other devil's
name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could
swear in both the scales against either scale;
who committed treason enough for God's sake,
yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come
in, equivocator.

Jean: So the porter appears after King Duncan has been murdered, but he has not yet been discovered. In this extract the porter makes reference to an event that would have been fresh in the minds of the audience at the time. Is that the First World War? Is it women being allowed to act on stage for the first time? Or is it the Gunpowder Plot?

MUSIC

Jean: And the answer is the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Macbeth was first performed in 1606. So the Gunpowder Plot would feel very recent to an audience. A priest called Father Henry Garnet was actually hanged for lying about his knowledge of the gunpowder conspiracy, which he pleaded that he did for “God's sake”. In his speech, the porter meanwhile, refers to someone who committed treason and enough for God's sake, a direct reference to the Gunpowder Plot and Father Garnet. Jacobeans believed that monarchs were selected by God so regicide, the killing of a king, had pretty grave consequences.

Carl: Grave consequences. Yes, see what you did there.

Jean: I shouldn't have found that so funny.

Carl: Right then final question, listener, and a final extract for you to listen to.

EXTRACT
Madcuff: I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Carl: Right, that you just listened to was Macduff. We, the audience, already know that Macduff is a very loyal character within the play as he followed Malcolm to England to help him regain the throne. What has he just found out here, and how does that impact him? Is it option A, his wife and family have been murdered? Is it option B, Macduff has found out that Macbeth is on his way to England too. Or is it option C, Macduff has found out that a forest has moved.

MUSIC

Carl: Have you got it? That was option A. The extract you heard was Macduff finding out that his wife and family have been murdered. So now not only does Macduff want to defeat Macbeth out of loyalty to his king and country, but he also wants revenge. If you want to find out more, you can listen to Episode Three again, if you want a recap on the character of Macduff.

Jean: But I think that brings us to the end of our recap quiz and of this series. So thanks for listening to the Bitesize English literature podcast all about Macbeth.

Carl: We hope you've enjoyed stepping inside Macbeth with us, hearing the words on the page and finding out more about the play. And remember, if you want to get all the episodes in this podcast, make sure you download the BBC Sounds app and you will find loads on there to help with your studies. You can find more BBC Bitesize podcasts to help with different English literature texts, and other subjects, revision playlists and plenty of audiobooks, music or podcasts to help you relax between your revision sessions. So we hope you'll join us for more - just search for Bitesize on the BBC Sounds app.

Jean: Bitesize English literature podcast - listen on BBC Sounds.