Outline for Today:

• Watch Act 3, scenes 1 – 3• Work on Idiomatic Activities (Act 3, scenes i, ii)– Have your paragraphs out on your desks,

I will collect these and give you feedback.• Development of Character: – Keeping up Appearances– Signs of strain in Lady Macbeth and Macbeth

Activity for Act III, scene iAct III, scene i

• Rewrite the following quotations in modern idiomatic English:

1. “There is none but he, whose being I do fear.”2. “For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind.”3. “…the seeds of Banquo kings .”4. “Masking the business from the common eye.”5. “I’ll come to you anon.”

Activity for Act III, scene ii

Act III, scene ii

• Rewrite the following quotations in modern idiomatic English:

1. “Is Banquo gone from court?”2. “Why do you keep alone?”3. “…these terrible dreams that shake us nightly.”4. “Sleek o’er your rugged looks.”5. “They are assailable.” (‘they’ = Banquo & Fleance)

Act 3 is all about Keeping up Appearances

• On many occasions, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth remind each other to keep up their appearances in front of their friends and guests.

Appearances• Lady Mac tells Macbeth to stop worrying: “Sleek o’er your rugged looks,

be bright and jovial / Among your guests tonight”(3.2.28-29).

• Macbeth agrees that it is important to mask their insecurities: “Let your remembrance / Both with eye and tongue; / unsafe the while, that we / Must lave our honours in these flattering streams / And make our faces vizards to our hearts, / Disguising what they are”(3.2.30-35). They need to win back the people, giving themselves good and honourable appearances through flattery, as they are the new King and Queen.

• “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck”(3.2.45) Macbeth is telling Lady Macbeth to appear innocent of any knowledge of the agreement he has with the murderers, with regards to the assassination of Banquo and Fleance. They look guilty!

Worrying• “ ‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy / Than

by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”(3.2.6-7)

– They are worrying about their actions, very insecure because they have killed Duncan.

– Worrying leads to strain on the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who will “sleep no more.”

Strain of a heavy conscience

• Lady Macbeth, to herself proclaims that it is easier to have been killed than it is to live in such insecurity because they have killed Duncan.

• Macbeth complains to Lady Macbeth:– “O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!”(3.2.36).– “Sweet remembrance; / Now good digestion wait on

appetite / And health on both”(3.3.38-39).– He has bad dreams!– Delusions! Later he encounters Banquo’s ghost

Treacherous Macbeth and Lady Macbeth:

• “But in them Nature’s copy’s not eterne”(LM 3.2.38) Nature does not hold an eternal copyright on Banquo and Fleance.

• There’s comfort yet, they are assailable”(M 3.2.39) Banquo and Fleance can be assaulted / attacked.

• “Things bad begun, make strong themselves by ill”(3.2.55) Macbeth is telling Lady Mac that ill deeds makes evil stronger with further evil.