Name ______Period ______

English 3 – Mr. McGowan

Macbeth – Act I, Scenes 1 to 4

1.  The first scene of the play is very brief, but rich in its hints about the kind of world we shall encounter as the play unfolds. What effect would the initial setting and the lighting (as suggested by the stage directions) have on the viewing audience?

2.  What impressions of Macbeth’s character are created, before his actual appearance in the play, by the details of the battle accounts of the sergeant and Ross in Scene 2?

Witches’ Prophecies about Macbeth / Witches’ Prophecies about Banquo

Which of these prophecies comes as a shock to Macbeth, but the reader knows has been fulfilled?

4.  Compare when Macbeth gives his speech, “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir.” (Scene 3, lines 152-153), and then later says his speech, “The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap..”

Has Macbeth’s mind remained steadfast, or has it changed? What significant event affected Macbeth’s decision in the second speech?

5.  As the play proceeds, the reader will find repeated imagery of “clothing,” the significance of which imagery gradually emerges more clearly.

Explain the “clothing” metaphor in the following statement of Macbeth:

MACBETH: “The Thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me

In borrow’d robes?”

(Scene 3, 112-113)

6.  Knowing Macbeth’s secret hopes and thoughts, the alert reader will appreciate the dramatic irony in many of Duncan’s lines.

Explain how this is an example of dramatic irony:

DUNCAN: “There’s no art

To find the mind’s construction in the face.

He was a gentleman upon whom I built an absolute trust.”

(Scene 4, lines 13-14)