Macbeth Act V Study Guide

Burnett’s Honors English 12

Directions: Answer the following questions based on the reading of Act V of Macbeth. Be sure you are explaining your answers with textual evidence!

Scene 1

  1. What is happening to Lady MacBeth? What help does the doctor offer? How does the Gentlewoman respond when asked about Lady MacBeth’s utterances?
  2. What do you imagine Lady Macbeth is writing?
  3. What sort of things do you think she is saying that the gentlewoman won’t repeat?
  4. When the doctor observes her, what is she doing and saying?
  5. Why can’t the doctor cure her?
  6. In the famous “sleepwalking” scene, Lady Macbeth relives events that have taken place earlier in the play. In her ravings she skips from one event to another, but she always returns to the same one.
  7. Of the three events she broods over, which troubles her the most deeply? Why?
  8. Why is Lady Macbeth obsessed with the idea of washing her hands?

Scene 2

  1. What does Caithness report about Macbeth?
  2. What does Angus report about Macbeth?
  3. Where is the Scottish rebellion force going to meet Malcolm and the English forces?

Scene 3

  1. As Macbeth realizes forces are mounting to overthrow him, how does he comfort himself?
  2. What does Macbeth realize he has given up or lost in his desire for power?
  3. What does Macbeth want the doctor to do?
  4. What is the doctor’s response to Macbeth’s request?
  5. Reread lines 22-28 beginning “I have lived long enough” …
  6. What does this soliloquy tell us about Macbeth’s state of mind on the eve of the battle?
  7. What traditional comforts of old age does he realize will not be his?

Scene 4

  1. What does Malcolm command his troops to do?
  2. What prophecy of the witches does this relate to?

Scene 5

  1. What change does Macbeth observe has occurred in him?
  2. Read lines 11-17 and summarize what Macbeth is saying in your own words.
  3. The monologue Macbeth gives when he learns of Lady Macbeth’s death is very famous. Why do you think this quotation is so famous?
  4. What startling news does the messenger report to Macbeth? How do Macbeth’s followers react to the arrival of the English army?
  5. What does Macbeth now think about the witches’ prophecy?

Scene 7

  1. Although Birnam Wood is coming to Dunsinan Hill, what prophecy does Macbeth still cling to?
  2. Why is it important to Macduff that he personally kill Macbeth?

Scene 8

  1. When Macbeth says, “I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.” what crucial information does Macduff reveal about himself?
  2. Do you find it admirable or pathetic that Macbeth declares, “I will not yield…yet I will try the last…” (5.8.27-32) even when he knows the witches have tricked him and he cannot win?
  3. a) Who killed Macbeth? b)Who is the new king of Scotland?
  4. What does Malcolm say about the death of Lady Macbeth?
  5. How do the prophecies of the Apparitions come true?

29. Macbeth’s final word on the meaning of life is given in scene v, lines 19-28. How would you describe, in one word, the tone of this

soliloquy? What are Macbeth’s thoughts on life as expressed in lines 19-23?

30. What specifically is the “brief candle” and what is its connection to a “poor player”? Why is it significant that this speech was

written for an actor?

31. Macbeth is a brave soldier almost to the end. On what occasions in Act V does he express his courage? Where does his courage

momentarily fail him?

32. Macbeth is sometimes cited as an example of “the villain as a hero”. Do you agree? Explain your answer.

33. Tragedy moves an audience to sympathy. If Macbeth were nothing but the story of an evil man and his violent crimes, it would not

have the power to move readers they way it does. The central figure of the play is a tragic hero – a man of imagination and

courage, with a fatal weakness, or tragic flaw, in his character.

a. What is that flaw and how does it destroy him?

b. Does Lady Macbeth share this same flaw? A different one? Explain your response.