Year 12 English - Science Fiction and Fantasy
Royal Shakespeare Company - Macbeth
Here are some of the key scenes from Shakespeare's "Macbeth" from the 1979 Royal Shakespeare Company production starring Sir Ian McKellen as Macbeth, and Dame Judi Dench as his demonic wife, Lady Macbeth (Directed by Trevor Nunn).
(View Explanations of Important Quotations - Spark Notes)
Act I, Scene vLady Macbeth speaks these words in Act I, scene v, lines 36–52, as she awaits the arrival of King Duncan at her castle. We have previously seen Macbeth’s uncertainty about whether he should take the crown by killing Duncan. In this speech, there is no such confusion, as Lady Macbeth is clearly willing to do whatever is necessary to seize the throne. Her strength of purpose is contrasted with her husband’s tendency to waver. This speech shows the audience that Lady Macbeth is the real steel behind Macbeth and that her ambition will be strong enough to drive her husband forward.
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Act I, Scene viiIn this soliloquy, which is found in Act I, scene vii, lines 1–28, Macbeth debates whether he should kill Duncan. When he lists Duncan’s noble qualities (he “[h]ath borne his faculties so meek”) and the loyalty that he feels toward his king (“I am his kinsman and his subject”), we are reminded of just how grave an outrage it is for the couple to slaughter their ruler while he is a guest in their house. At the same time, Macbeth’s fear that “[w]e still have judgement here, that we but teach / Bloody instructions which, being taught, return / To plague th’inventor,” foreshadows the way that his deeds will eventually come back to haunt him.
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Act II, Scenes i/iiThis is the pivotal "Dagger Scene" in which Macbeth's hallucination of a bloody dagger leads him towards Duncan's chamber to commit the "deed". Lady Macbeth also explains why she could not kill Duncan. Macbeth returns from Duncan's room with his hands covered in blood, and we hear Lady Macbeth's remark, “A little water clears us of this deed” (II.ii.65).
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Act III, Scene ivThe Banquet scene in "Macbeth" is one of the most moving scenes and so far as the tragedy of Macbeth' is concerned, it is tremendous in impact and intensity, dramatic in impact. The scene shows a perceptible degeneration of Macbeth's mental powers which is the inevitable consequence of his murderous deeds. It is the crisis of the play where from the reversal of Macbeth's fortune begins. The scene records Macbeth's guilty conscience taking the most horrible form in the shape of Banquo's ghost. It also shows Macbeth's gradual overcoming of the qualms of conscience.
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Act V, Scene iThese words are spoken by Lady Macbeth in Act V, scene i, lines 30–34, as she sleepwalks through Macbeth’s castle on the eve of his battle against Macduff and Malcolm. Earlier in the play, she possessed a stronger resolve and sense of purpose than her husband and was the driving force behind their plot to kill Duncan. Now, however, she too sees blood. She is completely undone by guilt and descends into madness. Her inability to sleep was foreshadowed in the voice that her husband thought he heard while killing the king—a voice crying out that Macbeth was murdering sleep.
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Act V, Scene vThese words are uttered by Macbeth after he hears of Lady Macbeth’s death, in Act V, scene v, lines 16–27. Given the great love between them, his response is oddly muted, but it segues quickly into a speech of such pessimism and despair—one of the most famous speeches in all of Shakespeare—that the audience realizes how completely his wife’s passing and the ruin of his power have undone Macbeth. His speech insists that there is no meaning or purpose in life. Rather, life “is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” One can easily understand how, with his wife dead and armies marching against him, Macbeth succumbs to such pessimism.
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