GCSE English/Literature Shakespeare Coursework 5%Eng/10%Lit

Name ____________________________________________

Target Grade for GCSE English / English Literature _________

This booklet contains everything you need to achieve in this coursework task.
You may refer to it and any other notes you have including a copy of Macbeth
when you are carrying out your oral response.

Contents

1. Task with explanation of terminology

2. Assessment criteria with Learning Triangle
3. Copy of Act II Scene 3 divided into 7 sections for annotating
4. Table for recording key quotes and ideas about Act II Scene 3
5. Graphs to plot mood and atmosphere in Act II Scene 3
6. Questions to focus ideas and support your discussion
7. Exemplar of how to structure a response to the task with advice
 GCSE English and English Literature

Shakespeare Oral Coursework Macbeth

Coursework Task

How does Shakespeare’s use of language and structure in Act II scene 3 of Macbeth create drama?
Comment on:

 the effects on the audience

 the ways this scene reflects the play’s themes and Shakespeare’s world.

In your discussion you should aim to:

 Give a personal and critical response to Macbeth which shows you understand the ways in which
meaning is communicated.

 Refer to the language, the structure and the themes in the scene of the play you are discussing (this
is the WAYS part above).

*personal* - this means to say what you think of the scene – which parts do you most enjoy/find exciting
or tense and why

*critical response* - this does not mean you have to say what you think is bad about the scene! Critical in
this context means to judge. So you need to say which parts of the scene are more dramatic/more
exciting/more tense than other parts of the scene and you have to say why.

*ways* - refers to HOW Shakespeare communicates the meaning. Like all writers Shakespeare does this
by using LANGUAGE (words which create images through metaphor, simile, allusion, symbolism),
STRUCTURE (the order in which things happen) and FORM (a play – stage directions, dramatic irony,
dialogue, props).
 GCSE English/Literature Shakespeare Coursework 5%Eng/10%Lit

This Shakespeare coursework involves watching and reading Macbeth. Whilst doing so you will study
character, action and language. There will be opportunity in class to discuss and make notes on
Shakespeare’s craft as a dramatist, his place in the literary tradition of drama and his ideas, attitudes and
feelings. You will also be encouraged to relate the play to its cultural context, contemporary audience and
comment on its universal appeal and relevance to the 21st century world. Your assessment will be an oral
response in which you will have a group discussion about Act II Scene 3. The general assessment objectives
are:

AO2 Reading (En2)

Candidates are required to demonstrate their ability to:
(1) read, with insight and engagement, making appropriate references to texts and developing and
sustaining interpretations of them;
(4) select material appropriate to their purpose, collate material from different sources, and make cross
references;
(5) understand and evaluate how writers use linguistic, structural and presentational devices to achieve
their effects, and comment on ways language varies and changes.

Check your target grade against the criteria on the Learning Triangle below so you know exactly what
you need to do to achieve. Ask your teacher if you are unsure.
A*

show originality of analysis and interpretation when evaluating the play’s moral,
philosophical or social significance; Shakespeare’s stagecraft and/or appeal to
A

audience; patterns and details of words and images

show analytical and interpretative skills when evaluating the play’s moral and
philosophical context; significant achievements within the dramatic genre;
B

Shakespeare’s exploitation of language for dramatic, poetic and figurative effect

show analytical skill when exploring the play’s implications, contemporary relevance
and historical context; characterisation, structure and theatricality; Shakespeare’s
C

use of linguistic devices

show insight when discussing the nature of the play, its implications and relevance;
D

characters, structure and stagecraft; Shakespeare’s use of language

show understanding when discussing the nature and implications of the play and its
structure; the appeal of the play to an audience; Shakespeare’s language
E

show familiarity when describing the nature of the play, its meaning and ideas; the
sequence of events and variety of characters; the impact on an audience
Annotate to show analysis of the dramatic qualities of language and structure in Act II Scene 3 of
Macbeth. Also annotate to consider the effects on audiences and how the scene reflects the
play’s themes and Shakespeare’s world.

II.3 has been divided into 7 sections to help you with your analysis.

Act II Scene 3 Macbeth’s Castle

SECTION 1

Knocking within. Enter a Porter

Porter
Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.
[Knocking within] Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of
Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time;
have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat for't. [Knocking within] Knock, knock! Who's
there, in the other devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the
scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not
equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking within]Knock, knock, knock! Who's
there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in,
tailor; here you may roast your goose. [Knocking within]Knock, knock; never at quiet! What are
you? But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in
some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [Knocking within]
Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the porter.

Opens the gate

Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX

MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
That you do lie so late?
Porter
'Faith sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three
things.
MACDUFF
What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes
the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an
equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it
persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion,
equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me: but I requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too
strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 2

MACDUFF
Is thy master stirring?

Enter MACBETH

Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.

LENNOX
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him:
I have almost slipp'd the hour.
MACBETH
I'll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
But yet 'tis one.
MACBETH
The labour we delight in physics pain.
This is the door.
MACDUFF
I'll make so bold to call,
For 'tis my limited service.

Exit

-----------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 3

LENNOX
Goes the king hence to-day?
MACBETH
He does: he did appoint so.
LENNOX
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
 New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
MACBETH
'Twas a rough night.
LENNOX
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 4

Re-enter MACDUFF

MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH LENNOX
What's the matter.
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building!
MACBETH
What is 't you say? the life?
LENNOX
Mean you his majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon: do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.

Exeunt MACBETH and LENNOX

Awake, awake!
Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see
The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.

Bell rings
-----------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 5

Enter LADY MACBETH

LADY MACBETH
What's the business,
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
MACDUFF
O gentle lady,
'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
The repetition, in a woman's ear,
Would murder as it fell.

Enter BANQUO

O Banquo, Banquo,
Our royal master 's murder'd!
LADY MACBETH
Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
BANQUO
Too cruel any where.
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so.

Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS

MACBETH
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There 's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN

DONALBAIN
What is amiss?
MACBETH
You are, and do not know't:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
MACDUFF
Your royal father 's murder'd.
MALCOLM
 O, by whom?
LENNOX
Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done 't:
Their hands and faces were an badged with blood;
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows:
They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make 's love kno wn?
LADY MACBETH
Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF
Look to the lady.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 6

MALCOLM
[Aside to DONALBAIN] Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN
[Aside to MALCOLM] What should be spoken here,
where our fate,
Hid in an auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?
Let 's away;
Our tears are not yet brew'd.
MALCOLM
[Aside to DONALBAIN] Nor our strong sorrow
Upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO
 Look to the lady:

LADY MACBETH is carried out by her waiting women

And when we have our naked frailties hid,

That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
Against the undivulged pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF
And so do I.
ALL
So all.
MACBETH
Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
And meet i' the hall together.
ALL
Well contented.

Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION 7

MALCOLM
What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
DONALBAIN
To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM
This murderous shaft that's shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.

Exeunt
 Macbeth Act II Scene 3 Regicide

Complete the table detailing the main events in this scene.

Who? What? / Key Words or Phrase Mood (humour, shock, anger)

Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5
Section 6
Section 7
 Macbeth Act II Scene 3

Create 3 graphs to plot how different moods in II.3 rise and fall.
Graph to show ______________________________

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Graph to show ______________________________

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 GCSE English and English Literature

Shakespeare Oral Coursework Macbeth

Coursework Task

How does Shakespeare’s use of language and structure in Act II scene 3 of Macbeth create drama?
Comment on:

 the effects on the audience

 the ways this scene reflects the play’s themes and Shakespeare’s world.

The following questions will support your discussion of the Coursework Task above:

1. Why does II.3 start with the Porter?

2. Why isn’t the Porter’s speech in verse?
3. What sort of language does the Porter use? What mood does this create? Is this mood different to
the mood at the end of II.2?
4. How does Macbeth when he meets Lennox and MacDuff?
5. What does Lennox say happened in the night? What themes does this link to? How does Macbeth
respond to news about what happened during the night?
6. What imagery does Macduff use to communicate that the king has been murdered? Why is this
appropriate?
7. How do the stage directions in II.3 contribute to the mood?
8. In what ways is Lady Macbeth’s response to the news of the king’s death inappropriate?
9. How doses Macbeth’s behavior link to what Lady Macbeth said to him earlier in the play about his
being a serpent under a flower?
10. How does Macbeth arouse the suspicion of the others?
11. Why does Lady Macbeth faint – is it a real faint? What is the mood at this stage in the scene?
12. What is decided in section 6?
13. How do the actions of Malcolm and Donalbain at the end of the scene develop the plot of
Macbeth?
14. How does the end of the scene contrast with the beginning?
15. At what points in the scene does Shakespeare use dramatic irony?
16. Why are there not any soliloquies from major characters in this scene?
17. How does Shakespeare prepare the audience for this scene in Act I?
18. Is there any evidence of the major themes of the play in this scene – supernatural / appearance and
reality / kingship / ambition
19. Refer to your graphs, which parts of the scene are most tense and why? Do moods rise and fall
together or do they contrast with each other?
20. How would Shakespeare’s contemporary audience have reacted to this scene?
21. Are there any messages from a modern audience in this scene and indeed the whole play?
22. Do you have any sympathy for Macbeth?
23. In what ways is the play a tragedy?
Here is an example of how to structure an argument in response to the task:

How does Shakespeare’s use of language and structure in Act II scene 3 of Macbeth to create drama?

Comment on:

 the effects on the audience

 the ways this scene reflects the play’s themes and Shakespeare’s world.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies in which a brave hero becomes an evil tyrant as a consequence of his
burning ambition and his persuasive wife. Themes of God, destiny and the supernatural make Macbeth an exciting play
throughout and in Act II Scene 3, when the discovery of the king Duncan’s murder is made, Shakespeare’s skilful use of language
and structure make the scene particularly dramatic.

II.3 follows a very tense scene in which Macbeth and Lady Macbeth tidy up after murdering Duncan. Lady Macbeth is confident
and proud whereas Macbeth already regrets his actions “wake Duncan with thy knocking, I would thou could’st”. Shakespeare’s
contemporary audience believed that kings were chosen by God, the fact that Macbeth has just murdered a king would fill them
with shock and horror. To defuse this tension Shakespeare begins II.3 with a light hearted mood created by the Porter’s
complaints. He has been woken up by knocking on the castle door and has to answer it. Having has a late night celebrating the
honour of having the king stay at Macbeth’s castle, he is a bit hung over and irritable, “Here’s a knocking indeed”. In his speech
the porter complains about the knocking and mocks whoever is waiting on the other side, he compares himself to a porter at the
gates of hell “who’s there, i’the name of Beelzebub”. The image of the porter as the gate keeper for hell creates comedy and
makes the audience laugh and therefore relax after the tension of the previous scene. There is some dramatic irony in what the
Porter says here as Macbeth’s crime will ensure he is eternally damned in the audience’s mind so, in a sense, Macbeth is going
to hell. The porter’s words are written in prose not verse and this emphasizes that he is of lower status to the other characters
who are of noble birth.

Shakespeare develops the comedy in the opening of the scene to further relax the audience by giving the Porter several
humorous and bawdy things to say about the effects of alcohol – “makes him stand to, and not stand to”, this sexual image has
amused audiences since the play was first performed and the laughter these words creates further dissolves the tense mood…

The brief dialogue between Macbeth and Lennox is used by Shakespeare to communicate the theme of the divine right of kings.
Lennox informs Macbeth that there had been earthquakes in the night “the earth was feverous and did shake”… Moreover
supernatural events are said to have occurred “… This is a powerful way of communicating God’s unease with the events of the
night… King James I believed in the divine right of kings and, as Shakespeare wrote the play to please King James I…

The imagery in Macduff’s words when he tells Macbeth and Lennox of Duncan’s murder further supports the theme of the
divine right of kings, “Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope / The lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence / The life of the
building! … This is a very dramatic image and when linked with the stage direction of ‘Bell rings’, creates a very powerful sense
of shock and urgency…

Throughout this scene Macbeth and Lady Macbeth must maintain the appearance of shock and disbelief however both of them
make mistakes when hearing the news and this creates much excitement and tension. Lady Macbeth makes a strange
comment… On the other hand Macbeth is over the top in his words and actions… Characteristically taking control Lady
Macbeth…
The end of the scene develops the plot… The contrast between the opening and the closing of the scene is great. The
lighthearted tone is replaced by tension. The sinister atmosphere has returned and this paves the way for Macbeth to continue
with his murdering…

Despite being over 400 years old the play remains relevant to modern audiences. On a straightforward level Macbeth is a play
which contains simple moral lessons: … In addition the ideas about destiny and God are eternal… Moreover ambition is
something that that is as important especially in the 21st century where the greed of the few is having disastrous consequences
on the many…

Even though you are discussing your response to the task you still need to make points, give evidence and offer explanation.
For grades A* to B you also need to analyse. Analyse simply means to ‘look closely’, in practice this means saying a lot about
a little. So for example, if you make a point about the religious imagery in II.3 try to comment on all the ideas that this
imagery relates to: God, divine right of kings, something pure being destroyed, the horror and disbelief of the character
saying those words, the fact that Shakespeare’s audience would all have been Christian, etc. This is inferring and deducing.