you don't get any more top grade than a prediction if it turns out to be right so I am going to show you why I make predictions what is the predicted question that I'm giving you for MC Beth then how to answer it which quotes to use in which order and what you're going to say about them and then the bonus bit if you hang around I'm going to show you how to apply everything I teach you if the exam mysteriously asks you a different question I'm going to go through each question that can be asked so why do I make predictions number one I have about a 50% success rate I see that as extraordinary because it means that my students could get loads more marks if I predict every single question and 50% of those questions come up that's why I make these videos what you really want to know is well what is it for at Beth for at Beth the pattern I'm seeing is that it's likely to be on the supernatural we have had the supernatural before in 2018 and therefore it might be more specifically focused on the witches and their in infuence on MC Beth but really whatever the wording those two questions are pretty much the same so let's as they say on YouTube get into it so I'm going to start off with a thesis statement the thesis statement gets me loads of marks because it tells the examiner I know what Shakespeare's purpose is okay so here we go Shakespeare's purpose is to flatter King James King James is his Patron I don't have to go into all of that he's going to flatter King James and his interest in witchcraft that's why the witches appear in the play but he's also exploring a really interesting idea of how much our lives are controlled by fate and how much our Free Will so if we have free will can we change our futures our Destiny or is that already mapped out you can see how that works with MC Beth's life would he have become king anyway and would everything have worked out well if he hadn't acted on the witch's prophecies so that is my thesis I have a bonus bit if you're up to this bit if you're not ditch it and that is the patriarchal context of the time because Shakespeare is exploring whether these women who appear with beards remember resort to evil and Witchcraft because there is no other way for such an unattractive woman to have any power in society at the time because women's appearance was valued so highly thank God the world has changed number two we're going straight in with the first lines of the play that introdu us to the witches and so we've already said why they're there they're there to flatter the king in thunder lightning or in Rain they say now this gives us the possibility that they control the weather and this sets them up as a true Supernatural Force the next thing we find out about is that they are there to meet with McBeth so they can see into the future they know that MC Beth will appear where they want him to appear but there is another alternative interpretation here that they just have the gift of foresight this was quite common in Greek tragedy MC Beth is a tragedy all tragedies are descended from Greek tragedy so if they only have the gift of foresight then MC Beth doesn't have to do anything he can just wait for that future to arrive but it also means they don't actually control him him they don't tell him what to do they just leave it to his own evil his own hamasha to make him commit these sins to get what he wants which is to be king number three we're going to look at the actual prophecies where they call him cordor they tell him he's going to be king Hereafter and that reinforces the interpretation that they're basically just seeing into the future and they're not manipulating him by getting him to do anything this is important because all the responsibility is his own he can't ever say the witches made me do it I was under the influence of Satan or the supernatural he can't say that because they never make him do anything and that's important to Shakespeare's worldview he says we are all accountable for our actions because he's telling the Nobles in the audience you are accountable for your actions do not think about killing the King now I'm going to tell you the story about a guy called McBeth who killed the king and look what happens to him right whereas King James's worldview might be people become evil because Satan is working on them through the evil of other people different world viiew or you could argue that Shakespeare shares King james' worldview number four why do I yield that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfixed my hair you can see I must have been terrified a lot in my time but MC Beth is saying why what does that mean it means he's asking himself what is it about me MC Beth that is causing me to think of murdering Duncan when I don't have to the witches haven't said oh this fate will only come true if somebody gets rid of Duncan no they've said during the course of time Duncan will no longer be king and you will be and so MC Beth is suddenly thinking about murdering his King and this troubles him because he realizes there is something morally wrong with him he realizes that all this violence he's been using in support of his King so he's become Brave McBeth the noble one Warrior the savior of Scotland all that heroism hides a darker problem and this problem is a character flaw in himself that is what is called hamasha in Greek tragedy and therefore in McBeth next he takes a step back in number five and he says if chance may have me King why chance may Crown me without my stir so this is a profound message because Shakespeare again is emphasizing that every decision MC Beth makes is his own he takes a step back and he says to himself my fate is to become king I don't have to stir I don't have to do anything but look at what he calls fate this is superg grade n analysis for you he calls fate chance well what does chance mean it means random and lucky and so by using the word chance and then repeating it chance may Crown me he's emphasizing to himself all right I know what you're saying to yourself McBeth you could just wait but the longer you wait the more chance there is that this might not happen happen because Chance gives you an element of uncertainty so his words mean fate it is certain but he uses words to persuade himself that it is not certain that it is just chance so you can see how his mind and therefore his own words are working against him pushing him towards regile number six and this is banquo's intervention Banquo was the ancestor of King James and so Shakespeare gives Banquo moral certainty because he wants to say to King James your ancestor was wonderful which is why you are wonderful and he's also saying to the Nobles look King James he's wonderful forget about the 160 five Catholic bomb plot to assassinate him no he's wonderful let's keep him as our glorious King and by the way if you don't you're going to end up like MC Beth so Bano says often times to win us to our harms the instruments of Darkness tell us truths why is this important firstly he's saying to M be look this sounds wonderful yes the witches said you were going to become thing of cordor and look hey Presto Ross and Angus or Lennox I can't remember who they are turn up and say yes you are th of cordor well don't take that to heart it could be that the witches are just giving you a little truth and then promising you the big truth of becoming King so he might mean look you will never become king or he might mean yeah you're going to become king but let's just chill out and wait for it to happen but there is a deeper psychology here because when we think about the witch's influence on MC Beth shakespear sets up banro as mcbeth's opposite the technical terms for that is antithesis or foil I tend to use the word antithesis and the Americans use the word foil but it means the same thing Shakespeare structures the play so that McBeth is kind of the opposite to Bano Bano is served up as morally good and McBeth as morally evil so banquo's reaction is crucial because it says how we should react to evil even evil that is seductive we should take a step back and think no this seduction is something that's evil that sounds good and attractive is going to lead me to my harm I should therefore step back so you could make the case that this would be the view of Shakespeare's jackbean audience however it might not be the view of the specific audience in King James's Palace who are watching the production of this play many of them would share the same ambition as McBeth many of them would see that Queen Elizabeth died without an heir and would therefore want James to be replaced by somebody they thought was better and not Scottish now calling the witches the instruments of Darkness also gives us two possibilities one they are completely evil and dark and therefore they express that evil but two they are being controlled so there is a satanic figure Satan for example controlling the witches who therefore control MCB Beth you can choose which interpretation you like which world view you think Shakespeare is putting forward I'm going to argue later that MC Beth doesn't particularly believe in the evil satanic power of the witches at number seven we have the motive that the witches might have which I introduced to you when I discussed the thesis statement and so this is banquo's reference saying you should be women and yet your beards forbid him for thinking they are so now this is quite a sophisticated level of humor and it's the humor that I'm going to use to suggest that MC Beth might not believe in the power of the witches not the evil power he still thinks they have a profound psychological power and that power therefore might be used for evil purposes but he doesn't believe they're in League with the devil but you don't have to argue that okay but let's get to their motive either way whether they're in League with the devil or not same motive the motive is they've got beards this is a patriarchal society in which they cannot get any power of their own except through marriage and you either have to be born rich or born rich and attractive sorry born attractive or both and the witches have neither here's the humor as you probably know all the female characters in Shakespeare's plays were played by men but not grown men if the woman was supposed to be feminine they were played by young teenage boys or even boys who weren't necessarily teenagers because they would have no hair this made them look female on stage obviously not exactly and that's part of the point the audience knows that the woman is being played by a man well Shakespeare could have had the witches portrayed by young teenage males but he didn't he deliberately went for fully grown men with fully grown beers he didn't ask them even to shave his whole point is he's saying look it's masculine values it's men that are the problem here and that's why I'm casting fully grown men as the witches to make the point that when women try to get power in different ways it's because Society doesn't give them any power and that you can see would be an awesome link if the question turns out to be on lady MC Beth same motive women who need to have power and influence but Society denies them so we have a motive for why they want to manipulate men why MC Beth well because he's the most powerful man they can manipulate and therefore by proxy the most power they can achieve themselves next we have McBeth with his imaginary dagger some people like to ask themselves if this is produced by the supernatural you maybe the witches have placed it there but there's nothing in the stage directions to say that so and Shakes and Shakes and MC Beth himself calls it a dagger of the mind so Shakespeare gives McBeth this self- knowledge McBeth knows that he is destroying his own sanity by going to kill Duncan and yet his desires are so powerful he's going to do it anyway way he also realizes that there is no real dagger it's just a projection of the power of his own desires so when we're considering how much the witches influence him we're coming down really firmly on the side that it's mcbeth's own desires that are doing the job at the end of the dagger he then sees gouts of blood which again emphasize his blood lust how much he enjoys killing and how much he wants to kill the king to get what he wants which is obviously absolute power and kingship you can add on to that Mr Everything english's favorite quote the heat oppressed brain what is causing the heat in mcb's brain is it the witch's words or is it his own desires I'm going for it's the power of his own desires which are so Fierce that they produce their own heat if however you want to show that the witches are satanic then the heat you could say alludes to the fires of hell and therefore in thinking about murdering Duncan MC Beth is stepping into this hellish world and so the heat is turned up number nine this I think is mcbeth's actual downfall you don't have to take this interpretation you don't have to take any of my interpretations but it'll give you stuff to argue about in the exam and so here he says Thou canst not say I did it who is he saying it to he's saying it to banquo's ghost now again you could argue that the witches through their Supernatural power are causing banquo's ghost to appear I don't favor that view I'm saying no it's mcbeth's own mind that is producing this Spectre this ghost of Banquo or I also really love this interpretation it is fate so when MC Beth killed Duncan he then went against Lady M best plans and killed his Grooms they weren't supposed to do that this made MC Duff suspicious but it didn't lead to anybody challenging him and they crowned him as king so he got away with killing Duncan fate said you're going to become king so that is in the prophecy fate call that God or some mysterious power that decides our destiny fate is happy but the prophecy was next that banquo's Sons would become Kings a line of Kings Beth won't accept that and so he has Banquo murdered when he does that he is challenging fate he's trying to change Destiny and at that point you could argue fate intervenes fate you could have as the witches or as God God could be saying look this is my plan and So the plan is that bankr Sons will become king as soon as that doesn't happen what does MC Beth do he confesses to all the Nobles to all the most powerful people in Scotland that he has killed Duncan why is that a confession well because none of them know that Bano is dead the big news is that the King was assassinated and now never Shake thy gory locks at me MC Beth is focusing as far as they can tell on the blood spiled on the murdered Duncan so this now becomes a confession and now various Nobles decide to turn against him and to join Malcolm in England this is the moment where everything goes wrong not when he decided to murder Duncan now number 10 when we think about the continuing power of the witches we see that they never go to meet with MC Beth again this questions their evil nature doesn't it they they haven't sought M Beth out they haven't tried to manipulate him further once he's killed Duncan instead it's MC Beth who goes to see the witches now another thing that shows that they're not that powerful is that they don't tell him what to do again let's unpick that he goes to see them because he says I am bent to know by the worst means means the worst in other words he already knows that the worst is coming like he knows it's coming and he's saying look I'm going to do something I shouldn't do I'm going to go and See The Witches again that's the worst thing I can do but I'm just going to find out what the worst thing is in the future he's not asking them for advice and they don't give him orders before we look at the riddles that they present him with let's consider what they say when he arrives they've just done a spell it's probably for at Beth but we don't know but the first which says by the pricking of my thumbs Something Wicked This Way Comes In other words they have picked on MC Beth not just because he is this powerful male but because he is wicked they have recognized the evil in MC Beth that so surprised him when he said why do I yield to this suggestion so they have seen that in him before he has that's a completely different perspective of course from Lady MC Beth who thought he was full of the milk of human kindness how wrong was she but the witches they were entirely right and so the wicked Beth now comes to see the witches and they are now going to play with him the idea of talking to the tragic hero in riddles comes directly from Greek tragedy so what would happen in a Greek tragedy is that the hero would try to escape their fate and they'd go to the Oracle so this SE her into the future and she would say what was coming but she wouldn't make it easy for them she would present information as a riddle and then when things eventually happened the hero would go oh so that's what the flipping riddle meant damn if only I'd worked it out earlier this game is still being played with McBeth but Shakespeare is therefore treating the three witches as like the three Fates in Greek tragedy he's therefore suggesting that they aren't satanic they are just instruments of Fate rather than instruments of d darkness in Greek tragedy the terrible things that happen to the hero are because of his own hamartia his own fatal flaw and it's the same with McBeth McBeth doesn't just want to be king he wants to keep on killing he wants more and more you can characterize that as ambition that's the common way of looking at it or you can characterize it as bloodlust that's the way I look at it you can choose which one you want it doesn't matter as long as you back it up so what is the prophecy that most matters to MC Beth it's the riddle they give him when they say none of woman born shall harm McBeth now this is like a major con because even when we find out that McDuff wasn't born of a woman it's actually a lie he was born of a woman it was his mother um you can't claim that therefore she is dead and not a woman any anymore and so the witches are toying with MC Beth here they're presenting something which sounds impossible and then is impossible and then they've got like a kind of 80% match when mdff turns around and says aha I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped shouldn't be that cheerful really cuz his mom died but you get what I'm saying here they're stretching the truth they're playing they're not making MC Beth do anything different to what he would already have done at this stage MC Beth knows that Malcolm and the English army are coming he knows that his own nobles have started to Desert and go and join the English he knows that he's not going to win this battle but he just wants to find out like when am I going to lose how am I going to die he wants to know by the worst means the worst so they're not actually getting him to change his behavior in any way they're just playing with him now you could argue that when they say beware McDuff they're encouraging him to kill McDuff but actually it's too late McDuff has already gone so when MC Beth chooses to kill mcduff's family that's nothing to do with the witches in fact you could say that if he followed the witch's advice he should never have killed mcduff's family because that would give McDuff even more of a motive to kill him so if he had listened to the witches he wouldn't have killed mcduff's family McDuff might not have killed him so again the witches here are not portrayed as evil they are not getting him to act in ways that are against his interests they are simply manipulating his hopes in order to give him greater despair if he chooses to think there's still some chance of survival and victory now the mass massive change from MC Beth is actually the death of Lady McBeth I like to argue that his reaction tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and all that that Soliloquy proves how much he loved her and his reaction then when he kind of gives up on life and becomes nealis thinking that life is meaningless that's what nealis means shows how much a part of his life lady MC Beth was once she's dead his life no longer has any meaning you could even argue that his desire to become king is really to elevate his wife to Queen and his reasons for killing Banquo and banquo's children isn't to protect his own life it's to ensure that lady MC Beth and him are going to have children who will also become kings that to satisfy his wife you don't have to argue that at all of course but that's just where I like to go with it so in this tomorrow and tomorrow Soliloquy I'm not going to quote the whole thing for you but I'm going to concentrate on a few key words so he sees himself and life as a poor player a walking shadow that struts his hour upon the stage so the idea here is that he sees life as meaningless and that the person living it himself is like an actor in a play what sort of actor is he he is a poor player player was an actor he's no good and so he's thinking my whole life has been pointless even becoming King was pointless but the next thing he's thinking is that he is a walking Shadow so a shadow is something that you can never catch so that's he's always after the the the next big thing but he can never get it but a shadow is also insubstantial so kingship might be the real person but he just inhabits the the shadow part so he's not a real king because he's gone against God he's gone against the divine right of kings he's gone against the great chain of being but this would have meant even more to a jacoban audience the shadow was the name for the understudy so the understudy goes on when the main actor is ill or away for some reason so not as good an actor so what he's saying is he's been a kind of impostor all this time he's not even just a bad actor he's so bad that he doesn't even get to play the part himself he's playing someone else's part you can see how that goes back to why do you dress me in borrowed robes that he's taking the place of Duncan but he actually doesn't fit the role of King he is a bad fit a bad actor an impostor now he has realized that he's realized that his whole life and ambition has been for nothing but the next part of the quote is that he is playing a tale told by an idiot so on one level he's accusing himself of being that idiot but if we develop that extended metaphor who has written the script in which he is the actor playing the part is it the witches who have determined how he's going to behave or is it in fact God I think he's blaming God here he's saying look you've decided what my fate is going to be it's completely pointless is completely meaningless this is important in two ways number one it confirms that he's an awful human being to a jacoban audience because he's criticizing God number two he's also denying his own personal responsibility he's saying look it wasn't really me that made all those decisions to kill people when I didn't need to it was in fact God God made me do it it was my fate it was a script written by an idiot so quite an accusation to turn against God and that shows us quite how much he is in despair that everything has turned to ashes there is no value in his life but the crucial bit for me because this is about the witches is that he doesn't blame name them he beats himself up for believing them but he never says they made me do it so in believing them he's cursing himself for indulging in Hope and now he's realized that there is no hope now that's completely different from looking back at his life and saying it would all have been different if the witches hadn't persuaded me to kill the king or to kill Bano or to kill mcduff's family none of that ever happened now at the end he still believes in the witch's prophecies he can see that they can see his fate they can see the future and that's why he says what's he that was not born of woman such a one am I to fear so he actually goes looking for his own death he wants to find this person who wasn't born a woman he wants to Solve the Riddle like I can't solve it it's impossible everyone was born of a woman I need the answer okay the answer is going to lead to my death but I'm going to die anyway let's be fair so I just want to know now I find that almost charming and it shows the power of fate and the power of tragedy he just wants to know the ending we're all like that aren't we we want to get to the end of the story if you're reading a story and someone takes away the last three pages you're like what I've wasted my whole time with this book there's no three pages that's how he views his life the ending is so important and he wants to find out what does it all mean does it all mean nothing is it all a tale told by an idiot the other part of the quote I have forgot the taste of fears is brilliant he as king no longer feels afraid and he's missing those feelings he doesn't feel anything now and he wants to get back in touch with his feelings again did the witches give him this state where he no longer has fear I don't think they did it was his own actions The Witches have not made him afraid in any way even at the beginning what was he afraid of not the witches but his own thoughts his own desires so now we come to the conclusion where we're going to say this is a cautionary tale warning the Nobles not to turn to evil that's where the witches come in not to be tempted that's where the witches come in not to try and Achieve power that they don't deserve that's where the witch's prophecies come in not to listen to evil influences that's where the Catholic plotters come in but instead to accept the great chain of being and the divine right of kings and in this part of my conclusion I'm going to argue that the most important thing in the play is not the influence of the witches it's the internal psychology and desires of mcbeth's own mind a mind that he's encouraging the audience not to fall into so I've shown you how to get full marks in this question let's think about what happens if you get a question on something else so let's say it's a question on Beth himself how much of this would you use well you're going to talk about him being evil and that's why the witches have targeted him you're going to talk about how they only tell him the truth but he still has this thought of murdering the king immediately and so we talk about his ambition his inherent evil you're then going to talk about his character where he persuades himself that he can't just wait for a fate he's going to have to intervene in case fate is not certain and it's just chance you will talk about how he understands what morally upright Behavior should be and he understands that he shouldn't go and kill the king but he also understands that he's going to become king anyway that's the point of banquo's words but he's going to go against it in his own mind and then in his actions this puts all the responsibility on him and so you can see how all this would lead to an essay on MC Beth so what if the essay is about violence well we can talk about MC Beth's violence you'd always go to the beginning of the play the unseened him from the Nave to the chops I say a lot about that in other videos but then you will say right that's why they've chosen him they've seen his violent capabilities and therefore they W The Witches understand that when they influence MC Beth he's likely to react violently as he does we're going to number four again why do I yield to that suggestion we then have him equivocating about well I can just wait for fate to happen but he rejects that not because of his ambition if it's a violent qu question but because he is addicted to violence and blood lust and so you can see how this would be images of violence why does he see a dagger of the mind with blood on it because he's addicted to violence and so on you just take these and think right what could I say about violence sometimes you'll have to add in something else like I did at the beginning with unseed him from the Nave to the chops everyone's paranoid the question might be about kingship well okay so what is a good King well it's not Duncan because he keeps not seeing who the traitors are he doesn't spot that the thing of cordor the original one was a traitor he doesn't spot that McDonald was obviously a traitor and has gone to fight for the Norwegians and he doesn't spot that the new thing of cordor MC Beth is also a traitor and so he is not a good political operator yeah he's a really bad judge of human character and therefore we can argue that he is not a decent King a strong King won't suffer from other rulers thinking they can invade the strong King will appear too powerful to organize have all these Nobles on his side so Shakespeare is arguing Duncan not a very good King pal and that's maybe why Fate has decided to get rid of him then we talk about McBeth good King in the sense that he's very strong he knows how to get his own way and he knows how to keep Bano quiet you could argue that that's a strong King if you wanted or you could argue that it's obviously a terrible King because he's gone against the chain of being and killed the king gone against God but what goes wrong for him is that he then keeps killing his allies his Nobles and that's what a king had to do had to keep their nobles on side but Beth fails to do that that's what makes him a terrible King so Shakespeare Shakespeare could be arguing two ways a good King is is somebody who is morally good on the side of God or a good King could be a kind of maav alien version who is powerful is brutal um but keeps all his allies on side you can choose whichever one you want now we can go through and look at this and think well what bits of these show what kind of King he is he rejects waiting he's a man of action that's possibly a good characteristic in a king is just that he chooses the wrong actions because he's attracted to Evil by turning against his own nobles a good King has a clear head McBeth cannot be a good King because his head is no longer clear because he's given up his own sanity by committing himself to evil and going against God who should advise a king his trusted Nobles MC Beth doesn't seem to have any of those he talks to his wife occasionally but he never has a conversation with another Noble in order to get political advice instead he goes to the witches bad King wrong advisors then we get to the ending where we get the natural order restoring itself with Malcolm being presented as a king this is the image of what kingship should be not just a good person but the one appointed by God a direct descendant of Duncan which of course leads us to the Royal Line King James he's a good King that is the message that Shakespeare is giving and therefore you should support him Nobles you shouldn't make him try to reach out to you but by the way he is reaching out to you cuz you're all here in the audience watching my amazing play what if the question is about lady MC Beth well we can look at whether we think she is inherently evil the fourth witch idea or whether she is exploited by a patriarchal society and therefore made Evil by her lack of power because of her role let's dive in and see how this would fit the witches pick on the McBeth to meet not lady McBeth which is interesting because one view is that lady MC Beth is the person who persuades MC Beth to kill so why don't the witches appear to both of them or just to Lady MC Beth because ultimately they know that she is not evil enough whereas MC Beth is she says put all this night's great business in my dispatch in other words I'm going to kill the king you just have to agree to it MC Beth but then she says oh he looked too much like my father as he slept so she thinks that she can be cruel enough but the moment she sees Duncan she can't do it because it reminds her of of who her father what does the father symbolize the patriarchy because the word patriarchy comes from the Latin Peter which is father so because she can't go against her father because she's been brought up as a woman in a patriarchal society she can't even symbolically go against her father by killing the King and father of course is also what God was called and indeed still is Our Father Who Art in Heaven so you can see how deep the patriarchal influence is that stops lady MC Beth acting on her desires so that's a reason why the witches go to MC Beth he has the power to act rather than lady McBeth who doesn't then we get the witch's prophecies well we can jump from that to the letter that McBeth writes to his wife calling her my dearest partner in greatness and so here we have something that is unexpected in this patriarchal society women were deeply subservient to men in fact they were their property at this stage and yet MC Beth treats her as a partner in greatness and he talks about the greatness that is promise thee now we could go a step further it's not just that he loves her and therefore treats her in this way as an equal it's also that he knows he hasn't got the ambition to kill the king or rather he's got the ambition but that's not enough he calls it vaulting ambition that falls on the other he knows that he's going to jump to become king but he'll fall if he doesn't have more than just ambition what's more lady MC Beth the planner the Persuader the one who's going to work out how they get away with it so that's how he uses the prophecies to write her a letter because he knows she will start thinking about a plan man before he then arrives he's coming his McBeth he's Mau Alan he's exploiting his wife you could then talk about how that leads to a comparison where she thinks she's going to pour her spirits in his ear and manipulate him because he's too full of the milk of humankindness which we've already established is completely and utterly wrong Something Wicked This Way Comes we had later where the witches perceive that and obviously he's killed the king and then he goes on a spree of killing there's definitely no milk in that bottle why do I yield to that suggestion MC Beth immediately thinks of murder so does Lady MC Beth so now we can say that they are so well suited the ultimate power couple who can get everything they want because they're willing to stop at nothing to achieve it you could even say that things start to go wrong when MC Beth stops confiding in his wife because remember it all goes wrong here that can't not say I did it when he's killed Banquo does he discuss the killing of Banquo with his wife no he doesn't he says be innocent of the knowledge dearest Chuck he doesn't tell her what he's going to do now she also does want him to kill Bango so you can play that either way so either their plans fail because they are both flawed or they fail because McBeth doesn't turn to his wife's advice you decide which way you want to go there when he says Thou CST not say I did it she's the first person to realize what this means to the Nobles and she is quick witted enough to think of the excuses oh my Lord is often thus uh he's suffering from this fit you don't have to get the exact quotation by the way you can paraphrase it's something he's had since his Youth and so she thinks on her feet all the time to try and bail him out of the holes he's dug himself but here she can't because that confession cannot be covered up now when he goes to see the witches to find out what the worst is we can see this as a rejection of his wife he doesn't want her advice anymore we will have to get lady MC Beth's most famous bit the sleepwalking scene he still loves her which is why he's got the doctor to come and help her wouldn't any husband do that well what's going on he is getting his armor on ready to fight a war so it's like you know I'm going to fight this battle against the whole of England or I'm going to take time out to see if I can get help for my wife he feels bad for her madness he realizes what's wrong that she's feeling terrible regret about what MC Beth has done not just what she's done and that's why in Her speech she talks about the thing of five had a wife she's looking at her husband and thinking I don't know him anymore he is now just become a voracious murderer that's not the man I married you could also see her as reflecting on her role as a woman here the wife has been killed nothing is sacred the another role that a wife has particularly for MC Beth is to provide an heir that's why MC Beth is out killing banquo's airs because he hasn't got one yet who is going to become king lady McBeth you will remember is talking about come to my woman's breasts so the murdering ministers can take the milk from her breast and turn it into bitterest Gall so she's still lactating which means she's only recently lost a child now that gives her a motive for wanting to become great in another way I can't achieve Greatness by being the jacoban ideal of a wife so therefore I'm going to try and Achieve Greatness by becoming a queen at the end of the play She suffers obviously from guilt and Madness but also she's looking at her patriarchal role and realizing that she cannot fulfill it she's a terrible Queen because she's married to a terrible King she's a terrible wife because she hasn't had any children to produce an air she's also sleeping separately from her husband who has stopped confiding her in her so she is no longer a partner of greatness she's simply got greatness but she's lost the partner bit how do we know because he goes to the witches instead of going to her for advice and then our conclusion is still the same she is the fiend-like queen it's a cautionary tale evil is to be rejected divine right of kings is to be restored yada yada yada so if you would like a grade eight and a grade n essay for this question it is in the link below the video let's get those grades