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Who is presented as a model of good kingship in the play?
Macbeth - Themes
This GCSE English Literature quiz is about the themes of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Like other works of literature, the play contains multiple themes, ranging from the subtle to the very obvious. It can be misleading to discuss a single theme in isolation, since individual themes interact with one another. Themes are developed through those various elements of literature with which you are already familiar, including setting, character, plot and dialogue. Pay close attention to any concepts and ideas which you notice recurring throughout the text; these are its dominant themes.
One way to analyse a text is to pay attention to the development of ideas from its beginning to its end. It is also helpful to consider whether (or how) your own views change over the course of the text. Do your views after reading correspond to the views you held at the beginning of the text? If your views have changed, can you identify the point at which this change began to occur?
1 .
Of what is Macbeth as guilty as the previous Thane of Cawdor?
Treason
Regicide (murder of a king)
Cowardice
The practice of magic
The Thane of Cawdor fights alongside the invading Sweno, King of Norway, an act of treason against his own king. By plotting to murder Duncan, the new Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth, is also guilty of treason
2 .
Macbeth is introduced to the audience as a valiant warrior, for which Duncan rewards him with the title, Thane of Cawdor. Which of the following responses to this honour does Macbeth share with his Lady?
They both receive the news with indifference
They both respond to the news with disappointment
They both respond to the news with ambition and a hunger for more power
All of the above
Macbeth refers to the honour shown to him by the King as one of the "preludes to the swelling act / Of the imperial theme". He looks forward already to what he understands as the witches' promise to him. Lady Macbeth responds to his letter with determination to encourage him to grasp the crown
3 .
Which of the following quotations does NOT imply that women are less violent, or valiant, than men?
"Unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full / Of direst cruelty"
"Bring forth men-children only; / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males"
"Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done't"
"I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me"
Lady Macbeth is determined to show herself to be unlike other women. The female sex is associated with nurture, rather than with death, so she asks to be "unsexed". Macbeth praises her as unlike other women and more fit to bear sons than daughters. Her inability to kill Duncan is due not to her gender, but to the similarity between patricide (killing one's father) and regicide (killing one's king)
4 .
How do the witches' prophecies affect the outcome of events in the play?
The witches' prophecies cause all of the events in the play without any help from human action
The witches' prophecies do not change any of the events of the play, all of which would certainly have come about through Macbeth's own action
The witches' prophecies both recognise and feed Macbeth's existing characteristics, including superstition, violence and ambition
The witches' prophecies are irrelevant to the outcome of events in the play
When one of the witches remarks "Something wicked this way comes", she recognises the evil in Macbeth's character. Macbeth and his Lady are ambitious and happy to use betrayal and violence to achieve their goals, yet the prophecies also propel their actions
5 .
Besides Duncan, who is presented as a model of good kingship in the play?
Sweno
Macbeth
James I
Edward the Confessor
Edward, King of England (and later known as the Confessor), possesses powers given him by God as a sign that he is the rightful king. He heals people through touch; Malcolm holds idealised views of kingship, referring to Edward as "full of grace" and describing his throne as one about which "sundry blessings hang". Macbeth, by contrast, is a tyrant who uses power for his own purposes
6 .
The witches take credit for....
Killing sheep
Causing storms
Causing a shipwreck
All of the above
The witch who wishes to punish a woman through cursing her husband's voyage to Aleppo can only cause tempests and acknowledges the limits to her power by stating that "his bark cannot be lost". Supernatural powers are shown to be limited in the play
7 .
Macduff's wife compares herself to which of the following?
A wren
An owl
A monkey
A ghost
Macduff's wife is "natural" in wanting to protect her children as the powerless wren defends her nest from the owl. She thus presents a contrast to the "unnatural" Lady Macbeth, who boasts that she would smash her child's skull if she had vowed to do so and who asks metaphorically that she might produce poison rather than milk
8 .
Macbeth begins and ends in war. In Act One, Scene One, the witches discuss the events of the battlefield and in Act Five, Scene Nine, Malcolm is presented with Macbeth's head. Which of the following lines from his final monologue does NOT refer to the violent events of the play?
"Calling home our exiled friends abroad / That fled the snares of watchful tyranny"
"This dead butcher and his fiend-like queen"
"By self and violent hands / Took off her life"
"This, and what needful else, / That calls upon us, by the grace of grace, / We will perform in measure, time and place"
The play ends with Malcolm promising wise rule in place of the tyranny and murder of Macbeth, whose violence is shown in his own actions and in those of his queen
9 .
Which of the following is correct?
Lady Macbeth feels guilt about the murders from which she benefits although she does not believe anyone can stand in judgement over her
Macbeth fears being judged for his treasonous actions by his peers
By fleeing, Malcolm and Donalbain show that they feel guilty for their father's murder
Banquo's death is a judgement for his part in not exposing Macbeth's treason
The play distinguishes between guilt and judgement. Lady Macbeth suffers psychologically from her guilt even while believing that as Queen she is safe from human judgement. Other characters wrongly attribute guilt to the sons of the king, judging their flight as an admission of guilt. Do you think Macbeth is judged by the end of the play? Who judges him?
10 .
"Away and mock the time with fairest show: / False face must hide what false heart doth know." What is meant by "false" in these lines?
Untrustworthy
Different in reality from what ought to be true
Different in appearance from reality
All of the above
The heart and the face tell different stories: the "false" heart betrays the one to whom it should be loyal and the "false" face shows love and friendship rather than the violent and murderous intentions of the heart
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