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.