MacBeth reading journal: Act Three

Scene One:

• 1 - Banquo remembers the "weird women's" prediction.
• 3 - Banquo suspects MacBeth: he says that he "fear (Macbeth hath) played most foully for't (To be King)"
• 29 - MacBeth accuses Duncan's sons of their father's murder.
• 48 - A MacBeth soliloquy about how his "fears in Banquo"
• 53 - MacBeth "fears" Banquo. He thinks that if he was capable of murdering Duncan, then Banquo must be capable of killing him in order to fulfil the weird sister's prophecy that he would be a father to a line of kings
• 60 - 61 - MacBeth says that the weird sisters gave him a "fruitless crown" and a "barren sceptre". Significant in that this shows that MacBeth believes that the weird sisters made him king, not his (and his wife's) own actions.
• 71 (stage direction) - Two Murderers enter. MacBeth is going to use hit men on his old friend for the sake of his "fruitless crown" and "barren sceptre"
• 116 - 117 - MacBeth believes that "every minute of his (Banquo's) being thrusts against my near'st of life"
• Notice the fact that Lady MacBeth had nothing to do with MacBeth's decision to consolidate his power by having Banquo and his Son killed! MacBeth is now the person with power in their relationship.

Gothic elements in Scene One:

• The supernatural: The weird sister's prediction.

Scene Two:

• 1 - Starts with a question
• 6 - "'Tis safer to be that which we destroy" 7 - "Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy" iambic pentametre, said like the witches by Lady MacBeth.
• 12 - "what's done is done" Lady Macbeth saying no regrets, you can't change the past. ("Can't change the past? Of course you can" - Gatsby)
• 51 - "The crow makes wing to the rooky wood" MacBeth. There has to be some deeper meaning to this sentance! It's sort of said like a witch...
• 36 - "O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!" MacBeth is not a happy bunny, despite being King of Scotland. His conscience is stinging him like scorpions.
• 45 - A MacBeth monologue in which dark language ("seeling night" 46, "tear to pieces" 49, "night's black agent" 53) is used throughout.

Gothic Elements in Scene Two:

• Darkness: In MacBeth's choice of language
• Psychological aspects: MacBeth's mind scorpions
• The Supernatural: references to how the witches speak in both MacBeth and Lady MacBeth's speach

Scene Three:

•  1 - Starts with a question
• 17 - Banquo is murdered by MacBeth's hitmen. Fleance, Banquo's son, escapes. There is a chink in MacBeth's hitherto inpenetrable armour!

Gothic Elements in Scene Three:

• Fear: Fleance must be petrified, although it does not say this in the text, so don't quote me on that

Scene Four:

• In which MacBeth sees the ghost of Banquo
• 20 - MacBeth admits that he will not be happy until Fleance is dead. He says this to one of the murderers who comes into his corronation party with blood on his face. MacBeth presumably thinks of himself as untouchable.
• 38 (stage direction) - a "ghost of Banquo sits in "MacBeth's place" at the table.
• No-one other than MacBeth can see the ghost. Witchcraft or the work of MacBeth's mind scorpions?
• 49 - MacBeth shouts "Thou canst not say I did it " to Banquo's ghost in front of all his dinner party guests.
• 52 - 53 - "Sit worthy friends, my lord is often thus and hath been from his youth". Lady MacBeth tries and fails to cover for her husband's sudden wild outbursts
• 72 (stage direction) - the ghost leaves before coming back after line 87.
• 115 - MacBeth is "blanched with fear" of the spectre.
• 124 - "choughs and rooks". Both black birds. Could they have had something to do with witchcraft back in Shakespeare's time?
• 131 - 132 - MacBeth desides to go and see the weird sisters
• Banquo's ghost is a manifestation of things going wrong for our tragic hero MacBeth.
• 143 - "We are yet but young in deed" says MacBeth. We are in so far that we now have to go the whole nine yards
• Banquo's death signifies a change in MacBeth from a man in which invested sympathy is rational in that he was only doing what his wife told him to, to a nasty piece of work who murders for power.
• 140 - Lady MacBeth says that MacBeth lacks "the season of all natures, sleep". Is this because of his guilty conscience, or is it because he is afraid of being murdered in the same manner as he murdered Duncan?

Gothic Elements of Act Four:

• Supernatural: Banquo's ghost. Nobody other thanMacBeth can see it!
• Fear: MacBeth is "Blanched with fear"
• The Past: Banquo has been murdered and now he's come back from the grave to tell MacBeth that it was he who did the deed.
• Dreams: Could Banquo's ghost be a daydream from MacBeth's lack of sleep?

Scene Five:

• 1 - Starts with a question
• Hecat, queen of the witches is angry with the other witches for acting without her say so.
• Builds the characters of the witches and shows that they aren't omnicient. Would the weird sisters have actually done anything to forfill thier prophercy of MacBeth becoming king?

Gothic Elements of Scene Five:

• The supernatural: The witches are back; this time with a queen witch.

Scene Six:

• 6 - Lennox (a thane) is convinced that "Fleance killed" Banquo because -7- "Fleance fled"
• 11 - "How it did grieve MacBeth" (the news that Banquo had been killed). Dramatic irony. MacBeth has murdered four people.
• 14 - Lennox thinks of MacBeth's double murder of King Duncan's bodyguards as "nobely done"
• 23 - MacDuff is in "disgrace" he has run off to England to form get an army to stop MacBeth because...
• 48 - Scotland is a "suffering country" under a tyrant king.
• MacBeth's flaw is his ambition
• The begining of the end for MacBeth.

MacBeth reading journal: Act Two, Scene Three and Four

Scene Three:

• This scene begins with a short section of what could be portrayed as "comic relief" after the regicide in scene two, with a drunken Porter opening the door to the castle and telling the audience what three things drink provokes.
• 16 - "This place is too cold for Hell" says the Porter.
• The people knocking on MacBeth's castle door were MacDuff and Lennox. MacBeth's fate was knocking at the door that so spooked him.
• 61 - The foul deed is discovered by MacDuff
• 80 - MacDuff calls Lady MacBeth a "gentle lady" which is dramatic irony, as we, the audience, know this to be far from the truth.
• 85 - Lady MacBeth acts grief about Duncan being murdered in "our house!"
• 104 - MacBeth has now committed three murders because of the words of the witches... He kills the two bodyguards that his wife framed.
• 115 - There aren't many stage directions used in Shakespeare, so the fact that Lady MacBeth "swoons" must be significant. Could it be because she is shocked that what she did was real? (Maybe she convinced herself that it had never happened). A distraction from MacBeth's gory descriptions might have been the reason. She swooned in order that nobody would question her husband's decision to murder the two guards. Alternatively it could be all part of her mask to conceal her real fealings of elation that the people there seem to have bought into the MacBeth's story of the bodyguards killing their boss (who pays them) and just going to sleep covered in blood with the knives in their hands. Are the characters of MacDuff and Lennox stupid or is it that they do not want to believe that any of their friends had it in them to commit such a crime?
• 132 - Malcom and Donalbain, Duncan's sons, decide to run away to England and Ireland respectively. They suspect foul play: Where they are...-137- "There's daggers in men's smiles"

Gothic conections in Scene Three:

• Symbols of darkness and light: The Porter calls the door upon which MacDuff and Lennox a "hell-gate" -2-, thus implying that the castle is hell. This is backed up with the Porter's ramblings about "Belzebub" -4-, "devil" -7- and "hell" -16-. Hell would be a symbol of darkness, as, acording to the Bible it is where sinners go when they die. When the Porter says, in line 16, that "i'll devil porter it no further" before opening the gate, this would signal that a symbol of light will penetrate the darkness when he opens the gate (into "hell"). "Enter MacDuff and Lennox". These two characters will be symbols of light that will cut through the darkness, aka the house of MacBeth (in both sences of the term).
• Settings are significant: Lady MacBeth pretends to be full of woe about Duncan being Murdered in "our house" -85-. 
• Fear: Lady MacBeth "swoons" -115- in pretend/real fear/shock. We don't know.

Scene Four:

•  A short scene in which "Ross" and an "Old Man" have a conversation. The purpose is to give the audience a deeper insite into the world of the play and what characters other than MacBeth think abou the state of things
• 11 - On "Tuesday night" a falcan was killed by an owl. This mirrors MacBeth's murder of Duncan.
• 14 - Duncan's horses (we can assume he probably had Scotland's finest horses) went mad and ate each other!
• 31 - MacBeth is on his way to "Scone", the sight where Scotish Kings were crowned. MacBeth is going to be King.
• MacBeth is not suspected of the deed and since Malcom and Donalbain ran away, they are now supected of Parricide. 
• Lady MacBeth's plan worked perfectly, so it follows that they might try the same trick again in order to keep the thrown.
• It is strangely dark all the time. Day and Night are the same. The witches? Coincidence? Or could it be Shakespeare implying that God does not want to look down upon that cursed land?

Gothic Elements of Scene Four:

• It is dark all the time, night and day. 
• The horses of Duncan going mad and eating could imply that the new king will go mad and kill his friends...

MacBeth reading journal: Act Two, Scene One and Two

Scene One:

• 8 - Banquo has "cursed" thoughts. Cursing is what the witches do so it is no surprise that...
• 20 - Banquo "dreamt last night of the three Weird Sisters". He says that, to MacBeth they have "showed some truth" (referring to MacBeth becoming thane of Cawdor as well as Glamis) MacBeth himself says that he has "thought not of them" but quickly adds that he would like a chat with Banquo about that matter. This, we can assume to mean, shows us that MacBeth is insecure about the Weird Sister's assertion that he will be king someday and feels the need to verify that that was indeed what they said.
• 33 - "Is this a dagger which I see before me" MacBeth imagines (or is it the work of the witches to pressure him into murder?) a dagger floating before him with the handle towards him. Tis a (38) "dagger of the mind". Does he have post traumatic stress disorder after coming home from battle (in which he "unzipped" someone, remember *shudder*), seeing three witches melt into the mud and being asked by his wife to murder in cold blood the man who he has just fought a war to protect? That's a lot of stress for anybody to go through. 
• 41 - MacBeth draws his own dagger. Does this mean that he is frightened by the floating dagger or that he really now intends to kill Duncan! The second idea is backed up by line 42 - "thou marshall'st me the way that I was going" 
• 51 - "witchcraft" - 52 - "Hecat" (the queen witch). Is the dagger the work of the witches?

 Gothic connections in scene one:

• The supernatural ("Witchcraft", a floating dagger, Hecat, cursed)
• The setting (a castle: typical of the Gothic genre)
• Fear (MacBeth is afraid of the dagger and the audience who knows that, if MacBeth murders Duncan, he wont get away with it)
• Mystery (Is MacBeth imagining the dagger, or is it the work of the nefarious witches?)
• Psychological torment (the dagger if it's imagined is a symbol of MacBeth's psychological torment...)

Scene Two: 

• The Murder is done off stage. Almost like Shakespeare's telling us that it is not the physical deed that is important, rather the repercussions from it.
• 14 - "I have done the deed" MacBeth. Duncan is dead.
• 31 - When MacBeth prayed he "could not pronounce "Amen"", a clear sign of a guilty conscience, or a "false heart" as MacBeth puts it at the end of Act One
• 36 - Another indication of MacBeth's guilty conscience would be his comment on himself in line 36: "MacBeth does murder sleep". He says this in third person, indicating that he wants to distance himself from the deed...
• 51 - "I am afraid to think what I have done" MacBeth
• 74 - MacBeth is regretting it already! "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" Two exclamations! This is super serious!
• Both MacBeth and Lady MacBeth are covered in blood by the end of the scene, both physically and mentally. Lady MacBeth says "A little water clears us of this deed". Yep. 0/10, must try harder. 
• MacBeth, as a character, is easily led astray by the important female characters in the play: The witches tell him he will be king and Lady MacBeth tells him to murder Duncan.
• Did Lady MacBeth's character rush the murder to make sure that MacBeth would commit it?
• Lady MacBeth would have killed King Duncan, but he "looked like her Father as he slept". Is this an excuse? Is she actually not as strong a character as her venomous tongue would have us believe?
• MACBETH IS TORN BETWEEN LOYALTY TO HIS WIFE AND LOYALTY TO HIS KING. Don'tcha know. A major theme of the play: split loyalty?
• Lady MacBeth does't love her husband, she has a lust for the power that MacBeth can project onto her (and, let's be fair, MacBeth doesn't show any signs of loving his wife, either)

Gothic conections in Scene Two:

• Fear (Both MacBeth and the good Lady wife are afraid of the knocking at the end of the scene. "I am afraid to think what I have done" MacBeth - 51)
• Psychological torment (MacBeth forgets to leave the daggers he committed the deed with in Ducan's chamber)
• The setting (at night in a castle)