Macbeth+-+Act+IV-V+handout(1)

Synopsis

Act IV Macbeth

Scene 1

We now see Macbeth receiving comfort from the three Apparitions that the witches call up. They appear in symbolic from. The first, “an armed head,” represents Macbeth’s own head (wearing a

helmet), as it is cut off and brought to Malcolm in Act 5, Scene 7. The “bloody child” that comes next is Macduff, who had been “untimely ripp’d” from his mother’s womb (as he tells Macbeth in Act 5, Scene

7). And the last, the royal child with a tree in his hand, is Malcolm, the rightful king of Scotland, who approaches the palace at Dunsinane camouflaged with tree-branches (Act 5 Scene 4). Macbeth cannot interpret these symbols, but Shakespeare expects the audience to understand what is meant. This is “dramatic irony”—when the truth of a situation is known to the audience but hidden from the

characters in the play. There is dramatic irony, too, in the words spoken by the Apparitions, for again we understand the apparent meanings of the words. Macbeth, however, is in no doubt about the significance of the final “show of Eight Kings.”

Scenes 2-3

This pathetic scene in which Lady Macduff and her son are massacred shows us Macbeth’s cruelty in action. When he plotted to kill Banquo’s son, Fleance, he could justify the crime to himself by referring to the prophecy that Banquo’s children should be kings. But he is in no danger from Lady Macduff or from her son; the crime is more dreadful because it is motiveless. Our knowledge of it helps us to find more dramatic irony in the scene that follows, when Malcolm mistrusts Macduff chiefly because he cannot understand

Why in that rawness left you wife and child—

Those precious motives, those strong knots of love—

Without leave-taking?

Macduff must prove his loyalty to Malcolm and to Scotland; then Malcolm must prove that he is worthy to be king. Again we are told of Edward the Confessor, and this time we hear of his divine gift of healing. This characteristic was not chosen by chance. Shakespeare uses many images of sickness; just a little later in this scene, he describes Scotland as a place where

good men’s lives

Expire before the flowers in their caps,

Dying or ere they sicken.

In act 5, Scene 2, Caithness recognizes Malcolm as the doctor who can cure Scotland’s sickness, calling him “the medicine of the sickly weal” (line 27)

We respond intellectually to this account of the English king, and to the concept of the monarch as some kind of physician, divinely appointed to safeguard the country’s health. We respond emotionally to the next episode in this long scene as Ross breaks the bad news to Macduff. We feel the painful irony of Ross’s evasive answer: “they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.” If we had not seen Lady Macduff

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and her son, we should not be distressed; because of scene 2, we are able to share Macduff’s own grief. I am always moved by Macduff’s answer to Malcolm, who urges him to

Dispute it like a man.

Macduff replies with dignity

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it like a man.

The word “man” is being used in two scenes. Malcolm intends it to mean “bravely,” but Macduff is

thinking of a man as a human being, with tender emotions of love and grief, which must not be denied.

Act V

Scene 1

The very next scene plays what happens when human emotions are denied. At the beginning of the play Lady Macbeth prayed that she should know “no compunctious visitings of nature” (I, 5, 44) that might prevent her from murdering Duncan. Now she walks in her sleep, and her mind constantly re-lives the night of the murder. On that night she declared confidently that “A little water clears us of this deed” (II, 2, 67), but now she knows that “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” It is the last time we see Lady Macbeth. Although the Doctor warns her lady-in-waiting to “Remove from her the means of all annoyance,” we learn later that “by self and violent hands,” she killed herself (V, 7, 99). Scene 2

From now until the end of the play the action moves between the two armies—Malcolm’s soldiers, steadily drawing closer to Dunsinane, and Macbeth’s forces, besieged near the castle. Caithness and Angus discuss the strength of the enemy, and Angus offers a shrewd comment on Macbeth:

Now does he feel his title

Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

Upon a dwarfish thief.

This is not the first image of badly-fitting clothes. When Macbeth was given the title “thane of Cawdor,” soon after the witches had prophesied that it would be given to him, he stood apart from Banquo and the king’s messengers; then Banquo laughed, and explained that Macbeth was like a man with new clothes:

New honors come upon him,

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould

But with the aid of use. (I, 3, 144-6)

Macbeth himself thought of the praise he had earned for his courage in terms of the clothes, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,

Not cast aside so soon. (I, 7, 34-5)

There are many such allusions throughout the play. They make us stop and think about the relationship between Macbeth and the honors he is “wearing.” has he won them, or stolen them? Will his “clothes” fit, in time—or will they always be too big for him?

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Scene 3

When he has hear the Doctor’s medical opinion of his wife, Macbeth asks, with his grim humor, for a medical opinion on the state of the country. The Doctor is allowed the same humor when he closes the scene:

Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

The situation is now so serious that only a sour joke (playing on the Elizabethan belief in the Doctor’s greed for gold) can ease the tension.

Scenes 4-5

Birnam Wood begins to move; what seemed like witches’ magic is seen to be elementary military tactics. Excitement and tension mount, as the soldiers come closer to Dunsinane. But Macbeth does not

respond to the excitement: he has lost the capacity to feeling either fear or, as we see when he hears of his wife’s death, grief. He speak the most disillusioned words that Shakespeare ever wrote when he contemplates life’s “petty pace from day to day.” He still hopes that the witches’ promises (made to him in Act IV, Scene 1) will protect him; but when he hears that “The wood began to move” his confidence is shaken, and he begins

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend

That lies like truth.

Scenes 6-8

Continuous battle is now being waged, and the stage should never be empty. Macbeth I sat last forced to confront Macduff, and also to confront the truth and admit that “these juggling fiends” cannot be trusted. When the castle has been surrendered, Macbeth defeated, and victory proclaimed, Malcolm announces the beginning of a new reign. Order has now been restored to Scotland, and affairs will once again be conducted “in measure, time, and place.”

Questions

Act IV

Scene 1

The witches gather on the moor to meet Macbeth. He makes them promise to answer his questions, and they conjure up magic apparitions which at first comfort, and then alarm him.

1. Identify the familiars (守护精灵) of the witches in the opening three lines.

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2. What do the geographical origins of the ingredients of the witches' broth tell us about the scope of their evil?

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3. What does Macbeth mean when he "conjures" the witches at line 50? What is he willing to sacrifice in order to get what he wants from the witches?

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4. What is the connection between each of the apparitions and the prophecy which the apparition delivers?

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Scene 1

Lady Macbeth suffers from a guilty conscience. She walks in her sleep, and dreams that she and her husband are murdering Duncan.

1. Find in Lady Macbeth's lines different references to six previous events in the play.

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2. For Lady Macbeth in this scene what is the equivalent of Macbeth's line about the ocean washing the blood off his hands in II, 2?

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Scene 2

A section of the army marches towards Dunsinane. The leaders discuss their enemy, Macbeth, who is showing signs of panic.

What image that's found throughout the play does Caithness use to describe Macbeth's fury which makes him incapable of acting rationally at line 13 -- 16 and again in Angus' lines at line 20 --22?

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Macbeth tries to comfort himself by recalling the witches’ prophecies as he is told of the approaching armies. He discusses his wife’s illness with the Doctor, and then goes off to battle.

Where in this scene does Macbeth reveal his real inner despair? What's the source of his loss of hope? _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Scene 5

The battle is at its height when Seyton brings news to Macbeth that his wife has just died. Macbeth does not grieve, because he feels that life is meaningless. A messenger tells him that Birnam Wood is moving towards the castle.

1. In Macbeth's famous speech, lines 17 — 28 what is the source of his despair? Identify four major images in this speech.

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2. Explain the source of the lines "Out, out, brief candle!/ Life's but a walking shadow."

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