Macbeth (Edexcel GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

In this extract, Banquo suspects that Macbeth “played’st most foully” to become king.

Explain the importance of kingship elsewhere in the play.

In your answer, you must consider:

• how kingship is presented

• the effects kingship has within the play.

You must refer to the context of the play in your answer.

[20 marks]

Read the following extract from Act 1, Scene 3 of Macbeth and then answer the question that follows.

In this extract, the Witches are discussing a sailor’s wife who has been rude to Witch 1.

[A heath. Thunder. Enter three Witches]

WITCH 1

Where hast thou been, sister?

WITCH 2

Killing swine.

WITCH 3

Sister, where thou?

WITCH 1

A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,

And munched, and munched, and munched.

‘Give me,’ quoth I.

‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.

Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger –

But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,

And like a rat without a tail,

I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do!

WITCH 2

I’ll give thee a wind.

WITCH 1

Th’ art kind.

WITCH 3

And I another.

WITCH 1

I myself have all the other –

And the very ports they blow,

All the quarters that they know

I’ the shipman’s card.

I’ll drain him dry as hay!

Sleep shall neither night nor day

Hang upon his penthouse lid;

He shall live a man forbid.

Weary sev’n-nights nine times nine,

Shall he dwindle, peak and pine.

Though his bark cannot be lost,

Yet it shall be tempest-tossed!

Look what I have.

WITCH 2

Show me, show me.

WITCH 1

Here I have a pilot’s thumb,

Wrecked, as homeward he did come.

[Drum beats in the distance]

WITCH 3

A drum! A drum!

Macbeth doth come.

ALL

The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about –

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again, to make up nine.

Peace! – the charm’s wound up.

Explore how Shakespeare presents the Witches in this extract.

Refer closely to the extract in your answer.

[20 marks]

In this extract, the sound of thunder is used to symbolise the evil nature of the Witches.

Explain the importance of symbols elsewhere in the play.

In your answer, you must consider:

• where symbols are used

• the effects symbols have within the play.

You must refer to the context of the play in your answer.

[20 marks]

Read the following extract from Act 1, Scene 7 of Macbeth and then answer the question that follows.

In this extract, Lady Macbeth reacts to Macbeth’s decision that they must not go ahead with their plan to kill Duncan.

LADY MACBETH

Was the hope drunk,

Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?

And wakes it now to look so green and pale

At what it did so freely? From this time

Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valour,

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem,

Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’

Like the poor cat i’the adage?

MACBETH

Prithee, peace.

I dare do all that may become a man –

Who dares do more is none.

LADY MACBETH

What beast was’t then

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man!

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.

They have made themselves, and that their fitness now

Does unmake you. 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.

MACBETH

If we should fail, –

LADY MACBETH

We fail?

But screw your courage to the sticking-place

And we’ll not fail! When Duncan is asleep

(Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey

Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains

Will I with wine and wassail so convince,

That memory, the warder of the brain,

Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason

A limbeck only.

Explore how Shakespeare presents the character of Lady Macbeth in this extract.

Refer closely to the extract in your answer.

[20 marks]

In this extract, Lady Macbeth appears to have power over her husband.

Explain the importance of power elsewhere in the play.

In your answer, you must consider:

• where power is shown

• the effects power has within the play.

You must refer to the context of the play in your answer.

[20 marks]

Read the following extract from Act 5, Scene 8 of Macbeth and then answer the question that follows.

In this extract, Macbeth encounters Macduff on the battlefield.

[Enter Macduff]

MACDUFF

Turn, hell-hound! Turn!

MACBETH

Of all men else I have avoided thee. –

But get thee back, my soul is too much charged

With blood of thine already.

MACDUFF

I have no words:

My voice is in my sword – thou bloodier villain

Than terms can give thee out!

[They fight]

MACBETH

Thou losest labour.

As easy may’st thou the intrenchant air

With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed.

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests:

I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield

To one of woman born.

MACDUFF

Despair thy charm! –

And let the angel whom thou still hast served

Tell thee: Macduff was from his mother’s womb

Untimely ripped.

MACBETH

Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so! –

For it hath cowed my better part of man.

And be these juggling fiends no more believed

That palter with us in a double sense –

That keep the word of promise to our ear,

And break it to our hope! – I’ll not fight with thee.

MACDUFF

Then yield thee, coward –

And live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time.

We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,

Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,

‘Here may you see the tyrant’.

MACBETH

I will not yield

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,

And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.

Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,

And thou opposed being of no woman born –

Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff! –

And damned be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’

[Exeunt, fighting on. Noise of battle comes to a climax, then fades. They re-enter still fighting, and Macbeth is killed]

[Exit Macduff, dragging away the body]

Explore how Shakespeare presents the relationship between Macduff and Macbeth in this extract.

Refer closely to the extract in your answer.

[20 marks]

In this extract, the meeting between Macduff and Macbeth becomes violent.

Explain the importance of violence elsewhere in the play.

In your answer, you must consider:

• where violence is shown

• the effects violence has within the play.

You must refer to the context of the play in your answer.

[20 marks]