We first reviewed all of Nina's study guide answers to Act V and thereby continued our analysis of the relationship between certain metaphorical passages and the events and characters in the play. As Nina is still having some difficulty with this task, I provided additional instruction and analytical assistance. We first worked on Malcolm's use of day/night metaphor as a foreshadowing of better days ahead for Scotland and McDuff. We then carefully parsed and analyzed Macbeth's most famous soliloquy ,"Tomorrow and tomorrow ,and tomorrow" etc. We studied the use of repetition, alliteration, and assonance in these lines and the metaphorical significance of the passage as a statement of Macbeth's nihilism. I compared Macbeth's nihilism in Act V with his Christian moral stature in Act I when he laments he can no longer pray when he most needs God's grace. We then explored the nature of Macbeth's relationship with Lady Macbeth's and noted the significance of their having no children or heirs perhaps due to Macbeth's impotence which Lady Macbeth exploits in Act I in order to induce Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to prove his manhood. Last, I reviewed the blood, water, light, and dark motifs in various portions of the play and related the imagery to hamartia. We will have our final test on the play on Friday.
As Nina completed reading the play, we studied how the play's concluding scene-the crowning of Malcolm- serves to restore order in society and in the universe which was disrupted by Macbeth's murder of the king in Act I . Nina discussed Lady Macbeth's suicide, and we contrasted Lady Macbeth's overpowering remorse in the final act with her unbridled avarice and ambition in the first act. Next ,we studied Macbeth's decision to fight to his death rather than surrender as he at last recognizes that the witches' prophesies were an evil deception that induced all of his subsequent murderous acts. During the second half of the session we watched the Kennedy Center's production of Act V of the play.
We continued to note the continuity of blood and water imagery in Act IV as Lady Macbeth sleep walks while pantomiming washing her hands moaning "Out damned spot." We compared the use of washing and blood imagery here with the use of this imagery in Acts I and II where Lady Macbeth insists "a little water washes us of this deed." Further we focused on the gender fluidity of Shakespeare's characters. Boys played the parts of women. Thus, in this play a boy plays the part of Lady Macbeth who displays the traditional male gender role of violent ambition. In other words, we see a boy playing the part of a woman playing a man. I discussed how this fluidity appears in other Shakespeare plays and how the male/woman imagery pervades this play. As we are working on the interpretation of symbolic metaphors, Nina then studied and discussed Macbeth's soliloquy wherein he compares himself to an aged withered tree ,his body strong but his soul withered in blood.
We concluded our study of Act IV by examining Act IV's role in the dramatic structure of the play. I first reviewed the Freytag dramatic structure and the role of hamartia and peripeteia within that structure. I then defined Aristotle's definition of catharsis and from there we discussed how Act IV's postponement of the inevitable climax of the play where MacDuff confronts Macbeth serves the play's structure. We further studied the motif of the fluidity of gender roles in the closing scene wherein Macduff -after learning that Macbeth has slaughtered his family- comments and redefines what is a "manly" reaction in response to Malcolm's taunts that McDuff should bear his grief like a "man." During our second session, Nina completed a written short essay assesment of the first acts of the play
Continuing our class discussion on dramatic structure and the Freytag triangle , we examined IV (ii) by first structurally noting how Shakespeare paints Macbeth as a morally corrupt King who kills McDuff's wife and children and thereby heightens the dramatic tension leading up to the play's climax where MacDuff finally confronts Macbeth. I then assisted Nina in comprehending the next somewhat oblique scene wherein Malcolm tests McDuff's loyalty by belittling himself. We discussed why Malcom distrusts McDuff and practiced metaphor interpretation by studying a passage that personifies a "bleeding "Scotland under the "yoke" of the tyrant, Macbeth. In order to further assist an understanding of this scene, I additionally provided historical information about King Edward the Confessor who is continually referenced throughout the scene .
As Macbeth contains more supernatural elements than most of Shakespeare's other plays, we first explored the play's blurred line between reality and the imagination. Nina addressed Macbeth's imagining seeing Banquo's ghost as an example and we then noted Macbeth's vision of the 'bloody dagger" as a further example. Nina further suggested that because the witches play such a critical role in the play, this element of the supernatural further evidences the melding of the real and the imaginary. Keeping in mind our analytical framework and study objectives, we then explored whether the presence of witchcraft transforms this tragedy into a tragedy of fate rather than a tragedy of hamarita or tragic flaw. Nina did very well in arguing how the play remains a tragedy of Macbeth's flaw as the witches simply plant the seed of evil but Macbeth nurtures the seed into a full blown evil. We then studied the additional prophesies of the witches in Act IV. I last explained the Freytag analysis of dramatic structure ,and we identified the play's exposition , anticipated climax, and denouement. During the remaining portion of our double session, we watched the Kennedy Center's production of Act II and the beginning of Act III the play.
On the board, we reviewed our objectives in studying "Macbeth" :1 To identify theories of tragedy 2. To interpret symbolic metaphors and to relate them to events in the play or character ,and 3. To Identify the function of imagery such as water and blood imagery. Nina then worked on preparing a written analysis of a portion of one of Macbeth's soliloquies to first identify the items compared in the metaphor and then to relate the metaphor to events in the play and to Macbeth's disintegrating moral character. I assisted her in isolating the items compared in the metaphor and in drawing the inferences from the metaphor to clarify its connection to the plot and to Macbeth's burgeoning evil nature,. We continued this written exercise with a second soliloquy that included the blood and water imagery.
Today's lesson focused on identifying foreshadowing , the motif of blood imagery, and supernatural imagery. At the end of scene (i) Macbeth in his famous soliloquy asks an empty stage ,"is this a dagger which I see before me." We discussed what the bloody dagger foreshadows and its appearance as a manifestation of Macbeth's conscience. Having introduced the image of blood, we then contrasted how this metaphor reflects the disparate characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as Lady Macbeth insists that a "little water clears us of this deed" while Macbeth famously questions whether all of the ocean's water will wash this blood /clean from my hand?" We continue to work on parsing the play's metaphors and then explaining how the metaphors relate to events in the play or the characters .Last, Nina interestingly raised the issue of whether Macbeth is truly manipulated by his wife or was already strongly predisposed to murderous ambition once the witches planted in his psyche the prospect that he would be king.
I placed on the board an analytical outline for Nina's study of Macbeth and discussed how to employ the outline in addressing test and study guide questions with the objective of identifying a theory of tragedy and interpreting metaphors in order to tie them to character or events in the play. We first discussed the two theories of tragedy and reviewed Aristotle's definition of hamartia . In discussing dramatic structure I then defined "Peripeteia" as the tragic hero's turn of fortune or the beginning of his downfall. We identified the play's tension between a tragedy of fate and of hamartia . Nina discussed textual support for each theory of tragedy and aptly concluded that the play ,while steeped in the supernatural, remains a play where the tragic flaw of Macbeth causes his downfall. Next, we identified various metaphors and examined how to interpret the metaphorical language and how connect the metaphors to events in the play or to Macbeth's character. We specifically analyzed the famous speech wherein Macbeth concedes he is "in blood stepped so far that I should wade no more" etc ..
