short essay about macbeth

Macbeth: Analysis and Themes

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Macbeth is, along with the character of Iago in Othello and his earlier portrayal of Richard III, William Shakespeare’s most powerful exploration and analysis of evil.

Although we can find precursors to Macbeth in the murderer-turned-conscience-stricken-men of Shakespeare’s earlier plays – notably the conspirator Brutus in Julius Caesar and Claudius in Hamlet – Macbeth provides us with a closer and more complex examination of how a brave man with everything going for him might be corrupted by ambition and goading into committing an act of murder.

It’s worth examining how Shakespeare creates such a powerful depiction of one man persuaded to do evil and then wracked by his conscience for doing so. What follows is a short analysis, but one which attempts to address some of the key – not to mention the most interesting – aspects of Macbeth . You can read our summary of Macbeth here .

The sources for Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Macbeth was a real Scottish king, although he was somewhat different from the ambitious, murderous creation of William Shakespeare. His wife was real too, but Lady Macbeth’s real name was Gruoch and Macbeth’s real name was Mac Bethad mac Findlaích.

The real Macbeth killed Duncan in battle in 1040 and Macbeth (or Mac Bethad) actually went on to rule for 17 years, until he was killed and Macbeth’s stepson, known as Lulach the Idiot, became king (though he only ruled for less than a year – then Malcolm, as Malcolm III, took the crown). Where did Shakespeare get the story from, then, and what did he change?

The plot of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a combination of two stories: the story of Macbeth and the story of the murder of King Duffe by Donwald and his wife, which Shakespeare read about in Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles . The Three Witches appear in Holinshed, but as ‘nymphs or fairies’, suggesting beautiful young women rather than old, ugly hags.

Holinshed’s King Duncan is a weak and feeble ruler, who has unfairly named his own son Prince of Cumberland (and thus heir to the throne), thwarting Macbeth’s own (just) claim to the throne, through his wife’s previous marriage and her son by her first husband.

In Holinshed, then, Macbeth has every reason to have a grievance against Duncan, rather than being motivated solely by ‘vaulting ambition’. When Duncan proclaims Malcolm his heir and Prince of Cumberland, Macbeth does not see it as a slight on him and his claim to the throne – for he appears to have no genuine claim. Instead, he sees it as the turning point: if he is to become King then he must take the crown by force.

What’s more, in Holinshed’s chronicle, Banquo actually helps Macbeth to murder Duncan. Shakespeare altered the character of Banquo because his King, James I of England (James VI of Scotland, of course) claimed descent from Banquo. This explains the scene in Macbeth with the mirrors displaying Banquo’s descendants – eventually culminating in King James himself. Banquo will certainly ‘get’ (i.e. beget) kings, all right.’

This is what led the critic William Empson to regard Shakespeare’s version of Macbeth as a ‘Just-So Story’, like ‘How the Elephant Got Its Trunk’: it explains how James came to be King, over half a millennium after the events of Macbeth .

The other story from Holinshed, detailing the murder of King Duffe, is much closer to the plot of Shakespeare’s play. In the tenth century, a century before the real Macbeth lived, Donwald, egged on by his wife, murders King Duffe (although in this version Donwald gets the servants to commit the murder rather than bearing the knife himself). Donwald and his wife get Duffe’s personal attendants drunk, and then to divert suspicion Donwalde blames them for their master’s murder, killing them in pretend rage.

Themes of Macbeth

Macbeth is a play that begins with the Weird Sisters discussing their future meeting, and ends with Macduff and the other survivors preparing to go and see Malcolm crowned King.

Even the soliloquies in Macbeth seem unusually focused on not just the contemplation of a future course of action (for that’s a common feature of many soliloquies in many other plays) but on the displacement of time that the play is preoccupied with: ‘If it were done, when ’tis done’, begins one of Macbeth’s most famous speeches, while he greets the news of Lady Macbeth with his celebrated meditation on ‘tomorrow’:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.

The first words Lady Macbeth speaks to her husband in the play show how her ambitions for her and her husband are already making her mind leap from the present into the future:

Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant.

But the glue that keeps all of these future meditations in place, and acts as the main device in Macbeth linking present to future, is the role of prophecy.

It’s worth stopping to consider and analyse the role of prophecy in Macbeth . It’s true that the Witches are clearly meant to be supernatural, and their prophecies are supposedly founded on – well, on their witchcraft. One of the reasons Shakespeare may have been drawn to the story of Macbeth is that, as well as speaking to King James I’s Scottish blood, it also played to his interest in witchcraft, black magic, and the supernatural.

Indeed, the King even wrote a book about it, Daemonologie , which had been published in 1597, six years before he came to the English throne. But the clever thing about the prophecies is that we are left to decide how much what happens in the play was foretold in the Witches’ prophecy and how much was a result of the course of action Macbeth decided on, once he had knowledge of the prophecy.

We talk of ‘self-fulfilling prophecies’, and Macbeth as a piece of drama leaves us in some doubt as to the relationship between Fate and free agency. If Macbeth had never been told by the Witches that he would be Thane of Cawdor, he would still have been made Thane of Cawdor. But would he still have become King?

For Macbeth to become King, he needed to know that it was ordained that he would one day sit on the throne, so he could then murderously take it from the current incumbent. If Macbeth had not acted upon the prophecy, it may not have come true.

A similar ambiguity surrounding the role of fate and the role of individual agency governs the plot of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex ; although Shakespeare’s tragic model was more Senecan than ancient Greek, Macbeth is perhaps the play in his oeuvre which comes the closest to following the model for a good tragedy set out in Aristotle’s Poetics .

Similarly, Banquo starts to take his prophecy seriously once he sees Macbeth’s coming true. Nevertheless, the idea that no man of woman born being able to harm Macbeth isn’t ever tested to the full: Macbeth may simply be unusually lucky in combat, and Macduff, regardless of his caesarean section, may just have proved lucky; at the same time, believing that having been ‘from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped’ made him invincible against the tyrannical Macbeth may have given him the self-belief that he could bring the usurper down. The stories we tell ourselves about our own lives, and our destinies, shape what we do.

Ambition – or ‘vaulting ambition’ as Macbeth himself puts it – is another central theme of the play. Hearing the prophecy from the Witches convinces Macbeth that he could be King. Indeed, more than that, the prophecy suggests that he is meant to be King. Although Duncan has ‘honour’d [him] of late’, and Macbeth knows that to kill the king who had raised him to the title of Thane of Cawdor would be, among other things, an act of supreme ingratitude, Macbeth is driven to commit murder so he can seize the crown.

Everything that happens afterwards – his dispatching of the hired killers to murder Banquo, the attempted murder of Fleance, the killing of Macduff’s wife and children, and the final battle at Dunsinane – is a result of this one act, an act that was inspired by both Macbeth’s private ambition and his wife’s lust for power.

It’s worth remembering that Macbeth was almost certainly written shortly after the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605. (There are a number of local allusions to this recent attempt at politically and religiously motivated terrorism: the numerous instances of the word ‘equivocation’ in the play refer to the Jesuit Father Garnet, who knew of the Plot and consorted with the conspirators.)

The ‘moral’ of Macbeth , if we can run the risk of reducing the play to an ethical message in this way, is that to usurp the ruler of a kingdom is usually a Bad Idea, at least if the ruler is generally thought to be a good one and your motivation for wanting to kill and replace them is your own grasping ambition to be monarch yourself. Which brings us to the last major theme of Macbeth worth mentioning in this short analysis (before the analysis becomes somewhat less than short)…

It would be inaccurate to say Macbeth feels remorse for the murder of Duncan. Even Claudius, the ‘smiling villain’ of Hamlet who killed a king so he could take the throne for himself, expresses something approaching a pricking of conscience for murdering his own brother, acknowledging that he cannot very well appear penitent before God if he doesn’t relinquish everything he’s gained by his murderous deed.

But Macbeth’s guilt over the murders of Banquo and Duncan is less remorse than it is fear of being discovered, and one bad deed gives birth to another, each of which has to be carried out to make Macbeth and his wife ‘safe’, to use the word that recurs throughout the play (a dozen times, including ‘safely’, ‘safety’, and other variants).

Even when Banquo’s ghost appears to Macbeth at the banquet, and appears to him alone, suggesting it is a manifestation of his own guilty conscience, he is terrified that the ghost’s presence will betray his secret, rather than wracked with remorse for killing his friend. Angus’ wonderfully vivid image of Macbeth’s guilt (‘Now does he feel / His secret murders sticking on his hands’) reminds us that ‘hands’ and ‘eyes’ and other body parts are often somewhat disembodied in this play, as numerous critics have acknowledged.

From Macbeth’s bloody hand (‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?’) to Lady Macbeth’s feverish somnambulistic hand-washing, to Macbeth’s early words in an aside, signalling his deadly ambition (‘The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, / Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see’), eyes and hands are at odds in this play, as if the eye countenances the evil carried out by the hand, with the wielder of the dagger turning a blind eye.

But as Angus’ words and Lady Macbeth’s night-time mimed ablutions demonstrate, one cannot so easily remove one’s mind from the hand that does a terrible deed.

One final piece of Macbeth trivia…

Macbeth is supposed to be cursed. The idea of the ‘curse’ of Macbeth has a complicated origin, though it was certainly given a leg up in 1898 when the novelist and wit Max Beerbohm put about the idea that the play was unlucky.

That said, it has had its fair share of tragedies and disasters: in a 1942 production starring John Gielgud, four people involved in the production died, including two of the Witches and the man playing Duncan. If you say ‘Macbeth’ in a theatre, you are meant to walk three times in a circle anti-clockwise, then either spit or say a rude word.

In 1849, Macbeth even caused a riot in New York . The Astor Place Riot was caused by two rival actors arguing about whose portrayal of Macbeth was better. American actor Edwin Forrest and English thespian William Charles Macready were both playing the role of Macbeth in different productions at different theatres on the same night, and a longstanding rivalry erupted.

Another notable nineteenth-century production of the play (featuring acting rivalry) involves the so-called ‘worst poet in the English language’, who once played Macbeth on stage – and refused to die at the end.

As we revealed in our selection of interesting facts about Scottish poet William McGonagall , when McGonagall – who has a reputation for being the worst poet in English – played the role of Macbeth in a stage production, he was so annoyed at being upstaged by his co-star, who was playing Macduff, that when Macduff went to kill Macbeth at the end of the play, he found his foe mysteriously unvanquishable.

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6 thoughts on “Macbeth: Analysis and Themes”

Eqivocation: Shakespeare (whose father was a friend of William Catesby, the father of Robert Catesby, one of the leaders in the alleged Gunpowder Plot) may well have been drawing attention to his own loyalist credentials when he shows the Porter admitting ‘an equivator’ to Hell. On the other hand he may have been doing a bit of equivocating himself. It depends how you say the line “who committed treason enough for God’s sake” it can simply be an exclamation “for God’s sake!” or mean “he committed treason enough for God’s sake…” he was one of ‘God’s traitors’ as John Shakespeare almost certainly, and William very probably were.

To create a breach of time hundreds of years in each direction: The Scotland that the historical Macbeth occupied was a tough, violent place demanding that a monarch be capable of meeting all challenges. If a monarch could be bested, deposed, all the better for the kingdom. Duncan’s nobility, a soft virtue, requires Bellona’s bridegroom succeed on the battlefield, and he doesn’t realize how dangerous such a warrior can be, especially with an ambitious woman goading him on. Now rocket forward hundreds of years to see the philosophical realization predicted in the tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow speech Macbeth ruminates upon hearing of Lady Macbeth’s death. (N.B. She dies off stage like most of the deaths in the play which conform to Aristotle’s Poetics which holds that violence on stage “but teaches bloody instruction.”) What does life signify? Nothing. Macbeth’s speech anticipates the 20th C. philosophy of existentialism. We come from nothing and we go to nothing. Any performance of the Scottish play in which the Three Sisters are performed exceedingly well enters the dreamscape of all the audience. The play is bloody, yes, and eerie too, as it travels in time.

I will refrain from the kind of lofty comments already given on here and just say your last story made me snort out loud :D

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Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 0 )

Macbeth . . . is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare’s plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespear’s genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion.

—William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays

Macbeth completes William Shakespeare’s great tragic quartet while expanding, echoing, and altering key elements of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear into one of the most terrifying stage experiences. Like Hamlet, Macbeth treats the consequences of regicide, but from the perspective of the usurpers, not the dispossessed. Like Othello, Macbeth centers its intrigue on the intimate relations of husband and wife. Like Lear, Macbeth explores female villainy, creating in Lady Macbeth one of Shakespeare’s most complex, powerful, and frightening woman characters. Different from Hamlet and Othello, in which the tragic action is reserved for their climaxes and an emphasis on cause over effect, Macbeth, like Lear, locates the tragic tipping point at the play’s outset to concentrate on inexorable consequences. Like Othello, Macbeth, Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, achieves an almost unbearable intensity by eliminating subplots, inessential characters, and tonal shifts to focus almost exclusively on the crime’s devastating impact on husband and wife.

What is singular about Macbeth, compared to the other three great Shakespearean tragedies, is its villain-hero. If Hamlet mainly executes rather than murders, if Othello is “more sinned against than sinning,” and if Lear is “a very foolish fond old man” buffeted by surrounding evil, Macbeth knowingly chooses evil and becomes the bloodiest and most dehumanized of Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists. Macbeth treats coldblooded, premeditated murder from the killer’s perspective, anticipating the psychological dissection and guilt-ridden expressionism that Feodor Dostoevsky will employ in Crime and Punishment . Critic Harold Bloom groups the protagonist as “the culminating figure in the sequence of what might be called Shakespeare’s Grand Negations: Richard III, Iago, Edmund, Macbeth.” With Macbeth, however, Shakespeare takes us further inside a villain’s mind and imagination, while daringly engaging our sympathy and identification with a murderer. “The problem Shakespeare gave himself in Macbeth was a tremendous one,” Critic Wayne C. Booth has stated.

Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him—and destroy him, not only physically and emotionally, as the Greeks destroyed their heroes, but also morally and intellectually. As if this were not difficult enough as a dramatic hurdle, while transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero—that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than detest him and will be relieved to see him out of his misery rather than pleased to see him destroyed.

Unlike Richard III, Iago, or Edmund, Macbeth is less a virtuoso of villainy or an amoral nihilist than a man with a conscience who succumbs to evil and obliterates the humanity that he is compelled to suppress. Macbeth is Shakespeare’s greatest psychological portrait of self-destruction and the human capacity for evil seen from inside with an intimacy that horrifies because of our forced identification with Macbeth.

Although there is no certainty in dating the composition or the first performance of Macbeth, allusions in the play to contemporary events fix the likely date of both as 1606, shortly after the completion and debut of King Lear. Scholars have suggested that Macbeth was acted before James I at Hampton Court on August 7, 1606, during the royal visit of King Christian IV of Denmark and that it may have been especially written for a royal performance. Its subject, as well as its version of Scottish history, suggest an effort both to flatter and to avoid offending the Scottish king James. Macbeth is a chronicle play in which Shakespeare took his major plot elements from Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587), but with significant modifications. The usurping Macbeth’s decade-long (and largely successful) reign is abbreviated with an emphasis on the internal and external destruction caused by Macbeth’s seizing the throne and trying to hold onto it. For the details of King Duncan’s death, Shakespeare used Holinshed’s account of the murder of an earlier king Duff by Donwald, who cast suspicion on drunken servants and whose ambitious wife played a significant role in the crime. Shakespeare also eliminated Banquo as the historical Macbeth’s co-conspirator in the murder to promote Banquo’s innocence and nobility in originating a kingly line from which James traced his legitimacy. Additional prominence is also given to the Weird Sisters, whom Holinshed only mentions in their initial meeting of Macbeth on the heath. The prophetic warning “beware Macduff” is attributed to “certain wizards in whose words Macbeth put great confidence.” The importance of the witches and the occult in Macbeth must have been meant to appeal to a king who produced a treatise, Daemonologie (1597), on witch-craft.

The uncanny sets the tone of moral ambiguity from the play’s outset as the three witches gather to encounter Macbeth “When the battle’s lost and won” in an inverted world in which “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Nothing in the play will be what it seems, and the tragedy results from the confusion and conflict between the fair—honor, nobility, duty—and the foul—rank ambition and bloody murder. Throughout the play nature reflects the disorder and violence of the action. Opening with thunder and lightning, the drama is set in a Scotland contending with the rebellion of the thane (feudal lord) of Cawdor, whom the fearless and courageous Macbeth has vanquished on the battlefield. The play, therefore, initially establishes Macbeth as a dutiful and trusted vassal of the king, Duncan of Scotland, deserving to be rewarded with the rebel’s title for restoring peace and order in the realm. “What he hath lost,” Duncan declares, “noble Macbeth hath won.” News of this honor reaches Macbeth through the witches, who greet him both as the thane of Cawdor and “king hereafter” and his comrade-in-arms Banquo as one who “shalt get kings, though thou be none.” Like the ghost in Hamlet , the Weird Sisters are left purposefully ambiguous and problematic. Are they agents of fate that determine Macbeth’s doom, predicting and even dictating the inevitable, or do they merely signal a latency in Macbeth’s ambitious character?

When he is greeted by the king’s emissaries as thane of Cawdor, Macbeth begins to wonder if the first predictions of the witches came true and what will come of the second of “king hereafter”:

This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor. If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings: My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.

Macbeth will be defined by his “horrible imaginings,” by his considerable intellectual and imaginative capacity both to understand what he knows to be true and right and his opposed desires and their frightful consequences. Only Hamlet has as fully a developed interior life and dramatized mental processes as Macbeth in Shakespeare’s plays. Macbeth’s ambition is initially checked by his conscience and by his fear of the unforeseen consequence of violating moral laws. Shakespeare brilliantly dramatizes Macbeth’s mental conflict in near stream of consciousness, associational fashion:

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly. If th’assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease, success: that but this blow Might be the be all and the end all, here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions which, being taught, return To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th’ingredients of our poison’d chalice To our own lips. He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against The deep damnation of his taking-off, And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other.

Macbeth’s “spur” comes in the form of Lady Macbeth, who plays on her husband’s selfimage of courage and virility to commit to the murder. She also reveals her own shocking cancellation of gender imperatives in shaming her husband into action, in one of the most shocking passages of the play:

. . . I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.

Horrified at his wife’s resolve and cold-blooded calculation in devising the plot, Macbeth urges his wife to “Bring forth menchildren only, / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males,” but commits “Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.”

With the decision to kill the king taken, the play accelerates unrelentingly through a succession of powerful scenes: Duncan’s and Banquo’s murders, the banquet scene in which Banquo’s ghost appears, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking, and Macbeth’s final battle with Macduff, Thane of Fife. Duncan’s offstage murder contrasts Macbeth’s “horrible imaginings” concerning the implications and Lady Macbeth’s chilling practicality. Macbeth’s question, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” is answered by his wife: “A little water clears us of this deed; / How easy is it then!” The knocking at the door of the castle, ominously signaling the revelation of the crime, prompts the play’s one comic respite in the Porter’s drunken foolery that he is at the door of “Hell’s Gate” controlling the entrance of the damned. With the fl ight of Duncan’s sons, who fear for their lives, causing them to be suspected as murderers, Macbeth is named king, and the play’s focus shifts to Macbeth’s keeping and consolidating the power he has seized. Having gained what the witches prophesied, Macbeth next tries to prevent their prediction that Banquo’s descendants will reign by setting assassins to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. The plan goes awry, and Fleance escapes, leaving Macbeth again at the mercy of the witches’ prophecy. His psychic breakdown is dramatized by his seeing Banquo’s ghost occupying Macbeth’s place at the banquet. Pushed to the edge of mental collapse, Macbeth steels himself to meet the witches again to learn what is in store for him: “Iam in blood,” he declares, “Stepp’d in so far that, should Iwade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

The witches reassure him that “none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” and that he will never be vanquished until “Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” Confident that he is invulnerable, Macbeth responds to the rebellion mounted by Duncan’s son Malcolm and Macduff, who has joined him in England, by ordering the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her children. Macbeth has progressed from a murderer in fulfillment of the witches predictions to a murderer (of Banquo) in order to subvert their predictions and then to pointless butchery that serves no other purpose than as an exercise in willful destruction. Ironically, Macbeth, whom his wife feared was “too full o’ the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way” to serve his ambition, displays the same cold calculation that frightened him about his wife, while Lady Macbeth succumbs psychically to her own “horrible imaginings.” Lady Macbeth relives the murder as she sleepwalks, Shakespeare’s version of the workings of the unconscious. The blood in her tormented conscience that formerly could be removed with a little water is now a permanent noxious stain in which “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten.” Women’s cries announcing her offstage death are greeted by Macbeth with detached indifference:

I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a nightshriek, and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t. Ihave supp’d full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.

Macbeth reveals himself here as an emotional and moral void. Confirmation that “The Queen, my lord, is dead” prompts only the bitter comment, “She should have died hereafter.” For Macbeth, life has lost all meaning, refl ected in the bleakest lines Shakespeare ever composed:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Time and the world that Macbeth had sought to rule are revealed to him as empty and futile, embodied in a metaphor from the theater with life as a histrionic, talentless actor in a tedious, pointless play.

Macbeth’s final testing comes when Malcolm orders his troops to camoufl age their movement by carrying boughs from Birnam Woods in their march toward Dunsinane and from Macduff, whom he faces in combat and reveals that he was “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d,” that is, born by cesarean section and therefore not “of woman born.” This revelation, the final fulfillment of the witches’ prophecies, causes Macbeth to fl ee, but he is prompted by Macduff’s taunt of cowardice and order to surrender to meet Macduff’s challenge, despite knowing the deadly outcome:

Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Macbeth returns to the world of combat where his initial distinctions were honorably earned and tragically lost.

The play concludes with order restored to Scotland, as Macduff presents Macbeth’s severed head to Malcolm, who is hailed as king. Malcolm may assert his control and diminish Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as “this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen,” but the audience knows more than that. We know what Malcolm does not, that it will not be his royal line but Banquo’s that will eventually rule Scotland, and inevitably another round of rebellion and murder is to come. We also know in horrifying human terms the making of a butcher and a fiend who refuse to be so easily dismissed as aberrations.

Macbeth Oxford Lecture by Emma Smith

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

Macbeth Ebook pdf (8MB)

Introduction

Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare in either 1605 or 1606. Its full name is “The Tragedy of Macbeth”. It was first performed in around 1606.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare Summary

Lady Macbeth plans to get the chamberlains drunk to show them as culprits after murder. When everyone sleeps, they start acting upon their plan and Macbeth stabs Duncan with a knife and kills him. After that, Lady Macbeth stains the clothes and faces of chamberlains sitting outside the king’s chamber and puts the knives near them to show that they are the culprits.

Moreover, Lady Macbeth starts behaving abnormally because of the guilt of her crimes. Death of Macduff’s family increases her madness and she becomes ill. English army attacks and reaches towards Burnam’s wood and they plan that each soldier will carry a bush in front of him. It seems like the forest is moving towards Dunsinane and the Prophecy of witches becomes true.

Themes in Macbeth

Kingship vs. tyranny:, relationship between cruelty and masculinity:, fate vs. freewill:, reason vs. passion:.

Macbeth is very logical and clear-sighted. He knows that he is doing evil and the consequences of it. He feels guilty for breaking King Duncan’s trust but he is persuaded by his wife to do evil.

Macbeth Characters Analysis

Moreover, he also starts behaving abnormally because of the guilt of the sins committed by him but again the thirst for power makes him strong and he begins to act according to his evil plans.

Lady Macbeth:

She represents the relationship between femininity and violence in the play. Macbeth says that Lady Macbeth is a masculine soul residing in a female body which shows that females can also be cruel and ruthless.

The Three Witches:

Macbeth believes in their prophecies which lead him towards darkness and downfall. However, their true identity is unclear. Although, they are servants of Hecate but the play does not tell us whether they are independent agents playing with human lives or the agents of fate.

King Duncan:

He is Banquo’s son who escapes the castle when murderers attempt to kill him. After that he does not appear in the play.

Macbeth Literary Analysis

Macbeth Summary and Analysis

Home » Literature Explained – Literary Synopses and Book Summaries » Macbeth – William Shakespeare » Macbeth Summary and Analysis

Introduction to Macbeth

Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare. One of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, Macbeth tells a tale of greed and lust for power and how the pursuit of such things inevitably leads one to their ultimate downfall. Macbeth is a Scottish general who has managed to lead his army to defeat invaders. Near the beginning of the play, a chorus of witches prophesize that Macbeth will eventually be made king of Scotland. Intrigued by the prophecy, Macbeth writes to his wife to tell her about it. She becomes consumed with thoughts of power and control and pushes Macbeth to commit unthinkable crimes in order to make the prophecy come true.

Literary Elements of Macbeth

Type of Work: Drama

Genres : Tragedy

Published Date: First performed in 1606

Setting: 11th century Scotland

Main Characters: Macbeth, Lady Macbeth. See full characters list .

Protagonist/Antagonist: Protagonist – Macbeth (he is considered a tragic hero); Antagonist – every other character acts to threaten Macbeth and therefore almost every other character can be considered the antagonist. Macbeth vs. the world. See character descriptions .

Major Thematic Elements: Corruption and unchecked ambition, cruelty and masculine authority, guilt, the loss of children. See major themes .

Motifs: Hallucinations, acts of violence, prophecy

Exposition: Macbeth is a military general who has recently seen significant success in battle. As he returns home, he encounters three witches who deliver a prophecy.

Conflict: Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to resort to murder to make the prophecy come true. Once Macbeth has been made king, political mistrust adds another layer of conflict.

Plot: Linear; chronological

Major Symbols: Blood, dark/gloomy/stormy weather. See major symbols .

Climax: The assassination of King Duncan

Literary Significance of Macbeth

Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest and most violent play that speaks to Scottish bravery. It is a complex and emotionally intense play that gained wide popularity when it was first performed. To this day, Macbeth remains a wildly popular drama. Macbeth differs from Shakespeare’s other tragedies which explore intellectually complicated dilemmas by exploring the rapid descent into madness that results from greed and power. Because it is so jarring and fascinating, it has shocked audiences for centuries and is likely not going out of rotation any time soon.

Summary of Macbeth

Macbeth Act 1 Summary

As Macbeth and Banquo make their way back to the king’s palace in a storm, they encounter the three witches who reveal that Macbeth is about to discover that he has been appointed thane of Cawdor. Macbeth asks for more information and they declare that he will also one day be king of Scotland. As for Banquo, they say that he is “lesser than Macbeth, and greater” and although he will never hold the throne, a long line of his descendants will. The witches vanish, leaving Macbeth and Banquo stunned.

Back at the palace, King Duncan announces the changes and reveals that he intends to make his son, Malcom, heir to the throne. Macbeth notes that Malcom stands between himself and the throne. Learning her husband’s prophecy, Lady Macbeth is wild with lust for her husband to become king and resolves that murder is the best course of action. She informs her husband of her intentions and begins planning. When Macbeth later reveals that he does not wish to murder King Duncan, Lady Macbeth verbally berates him until he complies. Lady Macbeth devises a plan to frame King Duncan’s chamberlains by smearing the king’s blood all over them as they drunkenly sleep.

Macbeth Act 2 Summary

After briefly running into Banquo and his son, Macbeth has a vision of a dagger floating before him in the air. The tip of the dagger is aimed towards King Duncan. Macbeth tries in vain to grasp the dagger and he has trouble discerning if it is real or imagined. He gazes at the dagger in wonder and realizes that there is blood on the blade. He decides it is a figment of his imagination and Macbeth resolves to follow through with his wife’s plan.

Lady Macbeth ponders about the event that is about to take place, feeling bold. Soon after, Macbeth returns, covered in blood, and informs her that the deed is done. He is badly shaken.

In the early morning hours, a knocking comes at the door of the Macbeth castle. It is fellow military men Macduff and Lennox who request to speak with the king. Macbeth says that the king is still asleep but agrees to take them to him. Macduff discovers the king’s murdered body. Macbeth says that the chamberlains must have done it. However, Macduff grows suspicious. King Duncan’s sons become concerned for their own safety and flee the castle. This causes suspicion to fall on the sons.

Macbeth Act 3 Summary

Macbeth is preparing for his coronation as king. Banquo is pondering the witches’ prophecy and thinks that since everything else has come true, his descendants will probably wind up as heirs to the throne. He feels ambitious but makes no plans of action. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth invite Banquo to attend the feast they will be throwing later that night.

Once alone, a servant informs Macbeth that some men have come to meet with him. The servant leaves to get the visitors and while alone, Macbeth delivers a soliloquy about Banquo and how his friend has turned into someone he fears. He worries that if the witches’ prophecy is true, he will not have any heirs to whom he will be able to leave the crown. The murder of King Duncan weighs heavily on his conscious and his suspects that may be his undoing. The men who were waiting to meet with Macbeth are two murderers who he has hired to murder Banquo and his son. Later, the murderers ambush Banquo and his son on their way to the feast and manage to kill Banquo, but his son escapes.

At the feast, Macbeth is outraged to learn that Banquo’s son escaped. He returns from speaking with the reporting murderer and sees the ghost of Banquo seated in his chair at the table. Macbeth begins speaking to him, but none of the other guests understand what he was doing. Lady Macbeth makes an excuse, and everyone decides to ignore Macbeth. Concerned, Macbeth plans to try and meet with the witches once more.

Elsewhere in Scotland, Lennox is meeting with other lords and it is revealed that Macbeth is starting to be seen as a usurper and is believed to be responsible for the murders of King Duncan and Banquo. Macbeth is preparing to fight to defend his role as king and Lennox and the lord hope that the King Duncan’s son, Malcolm, and Macduff can successfully save Scotland.

Macbeth Act 4 Summary

Macbeth finds the witches and asks them to reveal more information to clarify their prophecies for him. The witches provide confusing visions for him. Later, Lennox informs Macbeth that Macduff has left for England. Macbeth decides to have Macduff’s family murdered to prevent any meddling. In her home, Lady Macduff and her son are assaulted by a group of murderers. Her son is stabbed, and Lady Macduff flees with the killers chasing after her. Elsewhere, Malcom and Macduff worry about the future of Scotland.

Macbeth Act 5 Summary

Lady Macbeth is descending into madness, seeing visions of blood all over herself that can never be washed off. The English army approaches the Macbeth castle and Macbeth prepares by donning his armor. Macbeth soon learns that Lady Macbeth has died but he refuses to believe the news. Macbeth goes into battle to defend his castle and court. Macbeth and Macduff engage in battle, until Macbeth is slain by Macduff who carries Macbeth’s head back to the castle to announce victory in overthrowing the tyrant. Malcom is declared King of Scotland

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Synopsis and plot overview of Shakespeare's Macbeth

In this section

TL;DR (may contain spoilers): Macbeth hears that he is going to be king; he and Lady Macbeth kill people so he can become king; both of them die.

Macbeth Summary

Three witches tell the Scottish general Macbeth that he will be King of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth kills the king, becomes the new king, and kills more people out of paranoia. Civil war erupts to overthrow Macbeth, resulting in more death.

Read our Macbeth Character Summaries

More detail: 2 minute read

On a bleak Scottish moorland, Macbeth and Banquo, two of King Duncan's generals, discover three strange women (witches). The witches prophesy that Macbeth will be promoted twice: to Thane of Cawdor (a rank of the aristocracy bestowed by grateful kings) and King of Scotland. Banquo's descendants will be kings, but Banquo isn't promised any kingdom himself. The generals want to hear more, but the "weird sisters" disappear.

Soon afterwards, King Duncan names Macbeth Thane of Cawdor as a reward for his success in the recent battles. The promotion seems to support the prophecy. The King then proposes to make a brief visit that night to Macbeth's castle at Inverness. Lady Macbeth receives news from her husband about the prophecy and his new title. She vows to help him become king by whatever means are necessary (*ominous music*).

Is this a dagger which I see before me? — Macbeth, Act 2 Scene 1

Macbeth with Henry Irving Programme, 1889. An ornate border arch surrounds the wording, which has a design of thistles with a mask and a saltire at the top and an interlace with a central mask at the foot.

Macbeth returns to his castle, followed almost immediately by King Duncan. The Macbeths plot together to kill Duncan and wait until everyone is asleep. At the appointed time, Lady Macbeth gives the guards drugged wine so Macbeth can enter and kill the King. He regrets this almost immediately, but his wife reassures him. She leaves the bloody daggers by the dead king just before Macduff, a nobleman, arrives. When Macduff discovers the murder, Macbeth kills the drunken guards in a show of rage and retribution. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee, fearing for their own lives; but they are, nevertheless, blamed for the murder.

Macbeth becomes King of Scotland but is plagued by feelings of insecurity. He remembers the prophecy that Banquo's descendants will inherit the throne and arranges for Banquo and his son Fleance to be killed. In the darkness, Banquo is murdered, but his son escapes the assassins. At his state banquet that night, Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and worries the courtiers with his mad response. Lady Macbeth dismisses the court and unsuccessfully tries to calm her husband.

Macbeth Costume for Vivien Leigh as Lady Macbeth, 1955. A green, long mediaeval dress with tight full-length sleeves, a belt with an ornate gold buckle, and a black velvet trim round the neck which extends to the ground behind her on her right.

Macbeth seeks out the witches who say that he will be safe until a local wood, Birnam Wood, marches into battle against him. He also need not fear anyone born of woman (that sounds secure, no loop-holes here). They also prophesy that the Scottish succession will still come from Banquo's son. Macbeth embarks on a reign of terror, slaughtering many, including Macduff's family. Macduff had gone to seek Malcolm (one of Duncan's sons who fled) at the court of the English king. Malcolm is young and unsure of himself, but Macduff, pained with grief, persuades him to lead an army against Macbeth.

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes — Macbeth, Act 4 Scene 1

Macbeth Royal Shakespeare Company, 1967 (featuring funny hats). All characters are dressed in white. Macbeth and his lady sit on high-backed chairs facing us, other characters sit on stools around and facing them. All wear paper or cardboard crowns, Macbeth's and his lady's being taller than the rest.

Macbeth feels safe in his remote castle at Dunsinane until he is told that Birnam Wood is moving towards him. Malcolm's army is carrying branches from the forest as camouflage for their assault on Macbeth's stronghold. Meanwhile, an overwrought and conscience-ridden Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep and tells her secrets to her doctor. She commits suicide. As the final battle commences, Macbeth hears of Lady Macbeth's suicide and mourns.

Out, damned spot! — Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 1

Programme cover for George Skillan as Macbeth (1920), showing a profiled cartoon figure with a large head, shoulder-length curly black hair, and a long moustache. He holds a sword and a round shield.

In the midst of a losing battle, Macduff challenges Macbeth. Macbeth learns Macduff is the child of a caesarean birth (loophole!), realises he is doomed, and submits to his enemy. Macduff triumphs and brings the head of the traitor Macbeth to Malcolm. Malcolm declares peace and goes to Scone to be crowned king.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow — Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5

For additional reading, see our blogs on Macbeth

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Macbeth — Fate And Destiny In Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Fate and Destiny in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Categories: Macbeth

About this sample

Words: 991 |

Published: Feb 8, 2022

Words: 991 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

The intricate interplay of fate and destiny in "macbeth", final thoughts, works cited.

Shakespeare, W. (2015). Macbeth. Simon and Schuster.
Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2008). Macbeth (Modern Critical Interpretations). Infobase Publishing.
Kranz, D. (2016). A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Tragedies. John Wiley & Sons.
Bevington, D. (2014). Macbeth (Second Edition) (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series). Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare.
Niederkorn, W. S. (2015). Shakespeare: The Tragedies. Pearson.
Fischlin, D., & Fortier, M. (2017). Macbeth: Language and Writing (Arden Student Skills: Language and Writing). Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare.
McEachern, C. (2016). Macbeth: A Critical Reader (Arden Early Modern Drama Guides). Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare.
Jackson, R. (2018). Shakespeare and Domestic Life: A Dictionary. ABC-CLIO.
Montrose, L. A. (2016). The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre. University of Chicago Press.
Moulton, C. E. (2018). Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist. Routledge.

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Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

by William Shakespeare

Macbeth essay questions.

Macbeth is often cited as a famous example of what the American sociologist Robert Merton called a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Discuss how the mechanism of the witches’ prophecy works in terms of its self-fulfillment.

Macbeth Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Macbeth is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Of what importance are the bleeding Sergeant and Ross? Why does Shakespeare introduce two messengers?

There are two pieces of information here, hence the two messengers. The bleeding sergeant is meant to inform Duncan, and the audience, of Macbeth's valor in battle. Ross is meant to inform about the Thane of Cawdor being a traitor. Both pieces of...

The third which says that Banquo's sons shall be kings, Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3 questions

What is significant about the first words that Macbeth speaks in the play?

A motif or recurring idea in the play is equivocation. There is the balance of the dark and the light, the good and the bad. Macbeth's first line reflects this. It...

Study Guide for Macbeth

Macbeth study guide contains a biography of William Shakespeare, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About Macbeth
Macbeth Summary
Macbeth Video
Character List

Essays for Macbeth

Macbeth essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

Serpentine Imagery in Shakespeare's Macbeth
Macbeth's Evolution
Jumping the Life to Come
Deceptive Appearances in Macbeth
Unity in Shakespeare's Tragedies

Lesson Plan for Macbeth

About the Author
Study Objectives
Common Core Standards
Introduction to Macbeth
Relationship to Other Books
Bringing in Technology
Notes to the Teacher
Related Links
Macbeth Bibliography

E-Text of Macbeth

Macbeth e-text contains the full text of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

Persons Represented
Act I, Scene I
Act I, Scene II
Act I, Scene III
Act I, Scene IV

Wikipedia Entries for Macbeth

Introduction

Macbeth Essays

There are loads of ways you can approach writing an essay, but the two i favour are detailed below., the key thing to remember is that an essay should focus on the three aos:, ao1: plot and character development; ao2: language and technique; ao3: context, strategy 1 : extract / rest of play, the first strategy basically splits the essay into 3 paragraphs., the first paragraph focuses on the extract, the second focuses on the rest of the play, the third focuses on context. essentially, it's one ao per paragraph, for a really neatly organised essay., strategy 2 : a structured essay with an argument, this strategy allows you to get a much higher marks as it's structured to form an argument about the whole text. although you might think that's harder - and it's probably going to score more highly - i'd argue that it's actually easier to master. mainly because you do most of the work before the day of the exam., to see some examples of these, click on the links below:, lady macbeth as a powerful woman, macbeth as a heroic character, the key to this style is remembering this: you're going to get a question about a theme, and the extract will definitely relate to the theme., the strategy here is planning out your essays before the exam, knowing that the extract will fit into them somehow., below are some structured essays i've put together., macbeth and gender.

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Macbeth: Analysis and Themes
Macbeth was a real Scottish king, although he was somewhat different from the ambitious, murderous creation of William Shakespeare. His wife was real too, but Lady Macbeth's real name was Gruoch and Macbeth's real name was Mac Bethad mac Findlaích. The real Macbeth killed Duncan in battle in 1040 and Macbeth (or Mac Bethad) actually went ...
Analysis of William Shakespeare's Macbeth
By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 0 ) Macbeth . . . is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare's plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce ...
Macbeth by William Shakespeare Summary, Themes, and Analysis
Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare in either 1605 or 1606. Its full name is "The Tragedy of Macbeth". It was first performed in around 1606. The drama revolves around a Villain named Macbeth who is ambitious and brave but because of his thirst for power, he begins to do evil. He receives a prophecy from three witches that he will ...
Macbeth Essays
Macbeth. In 'Macbeth,' the eponymous character fulfils his own overwhelming thirst for power by committing what was viewed to be worst possible crime: regicide. This initial murder of King Duncan acts as a starting point for Macbeth's reign of terror, and... Macbeth essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by ...
Macbeth Essays
The Captain tells the King that 'brave Macbeth' (1.2.16) met the traitor Macdonald with his sword drawn and killed him in a very horrible and gory manner. Thus our first description of Macbeth is ...
Macbeth Critical Essays
Macbeth's. Topic #3. A motif is a word, image, or action in a drama that happens over and over again. There is a recurring motif of blood and violence in the tragedy Macbeth. This motif ...
Shakespeare's Macbeth essay, summary, quotes and character analysis
Timeline. Master Shakespeare's Macbeth using Absolute Shakespeare's Macbeth essay, plot summary, quotes and characters study guides. Plot Summary: A quick review of the plot of Macbeth including every important action in the play. An ideal introduction before reading the original text. Commentary: Detailed description of each act with ...
Macbeth Suggested Essay Topics
Suggested Essay Topics. 1. Macbeth struggles with his conscience and the fear of eternal damnation if he murders Duncan. Lady Macbeth's conflict arises when Macbeth's courage begins to falter ...
Macbeth Summary and Analysis
Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare. One of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Macbeth tells a tale of greed and lust for power and how the pursuit of such things inevitably leads one to their ultimate downfall. Macbeth is a Scottish general who has managed to lead his army to defeat invaders. Near the beginning of the play, a chorus ...
Macbeth Summary
Macbeth Summary. Act 1. The play takes place in Scotland. Duncan, the king of Scotland, is at war with the king of Norway. As the play opens, he learns of Macbeth's bravery in a victorious battle against Macdonald—a Scot who sided with the Norwegians. At the same time, news arrives concerning the arrest of the treacherous Thane of Cawdor.
PDF Six Macbeth' essays by Wreake Valley students
s on transfers all that built-up rage into it. Lady Macbeth is shown by Shakespeare to be strongly emotional, passionate and ambitious; these act almost as her ham. rtias leading to her eventual suicide in act 5. Shakespeare's specific portrayal of Lady Macbeth is done to shock the audience, she. is a character contradic.
Summary of Macbeth
Macbeth Summary. Three witches tell the Scottish general Macbeth that he will be King of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth kills the king, becomes the new king, and kills more people out of paranoia. Civil war erupts to overthrow Macbeth, resulting in more death. Read our Macbeth Character Summaries. More detail: 2 minute read.
Macbeth Summary
Shakespeare's Macbeth tells the story of Macbeth, a Scottish lord who receives a prophecy saying that he will become King of Scotland. Here are some key plot points: At his wife's urging ...
Macbeth: Study Help
Get free homework help on William Shakespeare's Macbeth: play summary, scene summary and analysis and original text, quotes, essays, character analysis, and filmography courtesy of CliffsNotes. In Macbeth , William Shakespeare's tragedy about power, ambition, deceit, and murder, the Three Witches foretell Macbeth's rise to King of Scotland but also prophesy that future kings will descend from ...
Fate and Destiny in Shakespeare's Macbeth
The Intricate Interplay of Fate and Destiny in "Macbeth". It would be imprudent to say that Macbeth's fate was wholly determined by his character only. After all, Lady Macbeth acted out as the final push for Macbeth's evil deeds. Macbeth embodies the ambition but he seems to need his wife's challenge, where she depicts him not as a man ...
Macbeth Essay Questions
Macbeth Essay Questions. Macbeth is often cited as a famous example of what the American sociologist Robert Merton called a "self-fulfilling prophecy.". Discuss how the mechanism of the witches' prophecy works in terms of its self-fulfillment. The question may be approached by examining the psychology behind Macbeth's character and his ...
AQA English Revision
Strategy 2: A structured essay with an argument. The key to this style is remembering this: You're going to get a question about a theme, and the extract will DEFINITELY relate to the theme. The strategy here is planning out your essays BEFORE the exam, knowing that the extract will fit into them somehow. Below are some structured essays I've ...