Writing about the Witches in Macbeth

The witches are often seen as one of the most gothic things about Macbeth. To revise all about the witches, try going through these questions. If you're not sure about them, you may need to revise some key extracts

The witches appear in three scenes in Macbeth, although it may be argued that their influence stretches far beyond this space in the play. Each appearance of the witches, however, tells us important things both about Shakespeare’s attitude towards them, and about their dramatic purpose. In each scene they are closely connected to Macbeth, and his reactions to them develop his character in interesting ways.

1. How do you think the appearances of the witches relate to the events in the rest of the play? Why are they placed at these points?
2. How does Shakespeare clearly associate these characters with witchcraft in the first scene? (think of using quotations—or references to stage directions—to reinforce your ideas here)
3. When the witches reappear in scene iii, what have they been doing? How does this help to build up the audience’s sense of their evil?
4. What in the witches’ comments might remind the audience of contemporary events?
5. How does the metre that the witches speak in make their speeches distinctive?
6. In I iii, in what sense does Macbeth mean that the day has been ‘foul and fair’, do you think? Why might Shakespeare want to emphasise Macbeth’s awareness of contrast here?
7. How do Macbeth’s opening words prepare the audience for his encounter with the witches? What metre is the line in (and why might this be important?)
8. Why is it not a surprise to the audience when the witches hail Macbeth as ‘Thane of Cawdor’? What is the effect of this knowledge on how we view the ‘prophecy’?
9. Which prophecy does Macbeth seem to be more surprised by (Thane of Cawdor or King?) Why might this be?
10. What is Banquo’s reaction to the witches? How does this contrast with Macbeth’s response? How can we tell how Macbeth responds from what Banquo says?
11. Why do you think that Shakespeare differentiates the two men in this way?
12. When the witches disappear, it injects a note of the real supernatural into the play. In some productions their disappearance is made to seem more naturalistic (e.g. they go to a hidden door which only Macbeth sees). How might such direction change the ways in which the audience perceive the witches?
13. Why do you think that Banquo and Macbeth discuss the idea that the witches might be an illusion?
14. Why does Shakespeare make the two men repeat (and joke about) the prophecy?
15. What has happened between Act I and Act IV to change Macbeth’s character?
16. In the third scene where the witches feature, in Act IV, there is an extended description of their potion-making. How do the details of this help to interest the audience?
17. Why do you think that Hecate (the queen of the witches) appears in this scene?
18. What is interesting about the comment that the second witch makes just before Macbeth enters? What does it suggest about the ways in which Macbeth has changed in the interim?
19. Why is it significant that at this point Macbeth has come to seek out the witches, rather than the witches seeking him?
20. When Macbeth says that he ‘conjures’ the witches, what would this word suggest to a contemporary audience?
21. Macbeth names a number of possible natural disasters that the witches might create. How does his knowledge of these make his character seem more evil?
22. Why is it significant that Macbeth asks to hear the prophecy from the mouth of the witches’ masters, and not from the witches themselves? What would this suggest to a contemporary audience?
23. The first apparition is described as ‘an armed head’. What might this symbolise?
24. Why might the second apparition seem like ‘a bloody child’?
25. Macbeth is reassured by the prophecy that says he cannot be harmed by one ‘of woman born’, and says that he will not kill Macduff. He then almost immediately changes his mind. What does this suggest about his character, and how it has changed since the start of the play?
26. The third apparition is a crowned child. What might this suggest?
27. The third prophecy advises Macbeth not to worry about conspiracy and ‘who chafes’ under his rule. Is this good advice? What might this suggest about the apparitions?
28. Macbeth’s final words about the witches are a curse: ‘Infected be the air whereon they ride / and damn’d be all that trust them’. Why do you think he says this? How do his words and his actions conflict?
29. In Act I scene v, Lady Macbeth has a soliloquy where she talks about things that a contemporary audience would have thought to be associated with Witchcraft. How many things of this nature can you identify in this scene, and what do they suggest about Lady Macbeth?
30. Is there anything else that Macbeth or Lady Macbeth do in the play which might be associated with witchcraft? Why would Shakespeare include such actions?

Well done! You are now well equipped to write an essay about the role of the witches in Macbeth.

Some really interesting writing on Carter

I have much enjoyed reading the reviews and analysis of Carter on this site--The Scriptorium. It has a lot of interesting ideas about The Bloody Chamber in particular. I'd like to delve a little deeper when thinking about the Beauty adn the Beast stories, and their oedipal content, though--in some ways aren't they very simple metaphors for the anxieties attendant on marriage arranged by parents, and the consequent loss of control?

Angela Carter meets wordle.

The Snow Child

The Erl King

The Bloody Chamber

A weekend task...

For a little extra interest, if you are doing Paradise Lost, I suggest that you mosey along to the Ashmolean.

There, on the third floor, in Western Art, amongst the impressionists and so on, you will find a wonderful bronze statue of Satan, just past the Degas ballerina sculpture (I attach an image, but it is sadly not a patch on seeing the real thing--perhaps bronze does not photograph well?)

It's by Jean-Jacques Feuchere, and the copy in the Ashmolean is actually owned by Jeffery and Mary Archer (I wonder why it is not in Cambridge?) and only on loan. The Louvre has a version as well. It's quite large, and very impressive, and some of the detail is worth an essay in itself.

While I was looking for an image, I came across two other Satan statues, by two brothers, Joseph (1808–1885) and Guillaume (1805–1883) Geefs, which have an intriguing history.

The statue is called L’ange du mal, or sometimes Le genie du mal (the genuis of Evil). Though both Geefs brothers were sculptors (they came from a talented family; their brother Jean was also a famous sculptor), it was the younger bnother, Guilliame, who was first given the commision in 1837 for St Paul’s Cathedral in Liège. Accordingly in 1843, the statue on the left, bearing Joseph's signature, was installed in the cathedral.



It didn't stay there long. The church authorities were disturbed by the beauty of the satanic figure sitting at the foot of the pulpit, declaring 'this devil is too sublime'. It was criticised for not representing the Christian ideal, and even for distracting the 'pretty penitent girls' who should have been listening to the sermons, according to the local press (did it distract the less beautiful, I wonder?)

Finally it was removed from the cathedral because of its 'distracting allure' and 'unhealthy beauty', and Guilliame stepped up to the mark and replaced it with the statue on the right in 1848. As you can see, he has been much more explicit with the Christian iconography, including a bitten apple, a broken crown and sceptre, horns, chains and much more closed body language, but it's still a fairly beautiful male figure, and taps into the Romantic idea of Satan as misunderstood hero. Apparently, L'ange du Mal is still seen as a 'dangerous' image, because it links Satan with the figure of chained Prometheus (Prometheus was a favourite subject for the Romantics), and this encourages a level of satanic tourism (something I didn't realise existed).

A curious link to the gothic here: in a 1990 essay, Belgian art historian Jacques Van Lennep discussed how the conception of Le génie du mal was influenced by Alfred de Vigny's long philosophical poem Éloa, ou La sœur des anges ("Eloa, or The Sister of Angels"), published in 1824, which explored the possibility of Lucifer's redemption through love. In this "lush and lyrical" narrative poem, Lucifer sets out to seduce the beautiful Eloa, an angel born from a tear shed by Christ at the death of Lazarus. The Satanic lover is "literally a handsome devil, physically dashing, intellectually agile, irresistibly charismatic in speech and manner": in short, a Romantic hero. "Since you are so beautiful," the naïve Eloa says, "you are no doubt good." Reminiscent of Heathcliff, no?

Thursday's Lesson

... will not now take place, as I have been invited back for another day of interviews. Many apologies, as obviously, I would far rather be teaching you. There are two things that I suggest you do with your time today:

1) Can I suggest that you use some of your time by reading more widely in some of the criticism that surrounds the gothic, so as to reinforce your knowledge of AO3?.

The word 'unheimlich' means something like 'uncanny' though not exactly (it's hard to translate). There is an interesting selection of articles related to this idea at the University of Virginia site (you may already know this) via a rather unpromising link from a glossary. Anyway, here it is, more directly, and I've added it to the list of useful sites as well. There are articles by Freud, Toderov and so on, which you should find interesting. We shall discuss the use of the unheimlich at our next lesson.

2) you could, of course, do a timed essay from the selection of section B questions that I have already posted, and e-mail it to me.

Many thanks, and apologies again,
MMc

Beauty and the Beast

It's lovely,isn't it--though of course Carter makes something much darker of the base story than Disney. Why do you think that she effectively 'doubles' the story by giving us 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon' as well as 'The Tiger's Bride'? Does she want us to simply know the base story to ring the changes on it? Or is there more to Mr Lyon than there appears to be at first sight?

Remember your question:

“Gothic texts often present a powerful opposition between dominance and submission” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

Try considering how the repetition of the story strengthens or changes the ideas of dominance and submission...

Of course one other thing that repetition does is strenghtens or changes our preconceptions. One thing that inetrests me is the way that the beast is portrayed. I remember watching an inetresting interview with the animators where they discussed how they had come up with the Disney version--apparently a Wildebeest was a majoy contributor. The picture above seems very leonine, which goes with Mr Lyon (lions are also mentioned in The Tiger's Bride, and of course lions and tigers do interbreed (interesting but ultimately not very useful fact), and are both considered in some sense royal or dignified.


But what if the beast is not very attractive as an animal--if he is really beastly? Look at these illustrations, one by Walter Crane and one by Arthur Rackham. Neither seems to show the beast as particularly attractive as an animal in the way that a tiger or lion might be. How does this affect the story, and the transformation?

I especially like Rackham's rather piggy beast, because the incongruity is so great between his manner and his appearance--the way that he seems to be taking tea in a perfectly civilised manner in a smart suit, making polite conversation, with the head of a wild boar, though Crane's beast has a good deal of appeal as well. He seems to have cornered the market on pathos, looking rather like a sick frog in a ditch, though this is perhaps because of the point in the story from which this is taken. Anyway, neither of them look exactly like romantic heroes, whereas a more leonine or tiger-like beast seems to me to be closer to what human think of as attractive--what do you think?

Questions for Paper 3

For all those of you who want some section B practice, here is a copy of the sample questions. I'm happy to mark any answers to these you want to produce, but do please be aware that first priority in my marking folder goes to those students who turn up to lessons on a regular basis--and if you are at the bottom of the folder it might be a long time before your work becomes a priority. Those who are in lessons have nothing to fear--I'll try and get you back work within a lesson or so.

1. “Gothic texts present good and evil in ways that sometimes seem ambiguous” Discuss this view in relation to any three of the texts that you have been studying

2. “Gothic literature is concerned with portraying complex states of mind in its protagonists” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

3. Discuss the presentation of evil or wickedness in any three of the texts that you have studied.

4. “Gothic texts rely on sharp contrasts and oppositions” Discuss this view in relation to any three of the texts that you have been studying

5. “Gothic texts often seem to deal with the melodramatic, the extreme, the exaggerated”. Discuss this view in relation to any three of the texts that you have been studying

6. “Gothic texts often rely on powerful imagery to create dramatic effects” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

7. “Understanding the symbolic realm is key to an understanding of the Gothic; objects or characters in Gothic literature almost always represent something more than they might at first appear” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

8. Discuss how authors create sympathy for characters that do evil things in any three of the texts that you have studied.

9. “Gothic texts often present a powerful opposition between dominance and submission” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

10. Explore the presentation of victims in any three of the texts that you have studied.

The Bloody Chamber

I have just found a really interesting site which is rather like this (though with fewer followers--which is a shame, as it deserves more), from a school in Canterbury.

The author has included a rather interesting piece on The Bloody Chamber which might be really helpful if you are working on it--looking closely at some of the key themes and images. Take a look and let me know what you think of it. I've been looking at how it compares to Wuthering Heights--it's quite an interesting comparison.