'Macbeth', Extra Notes, Revision

‘Macbeth’, Extra Notes, Revision

Act III scene 4 –

• Macbeth goes over the brink, Lady Macbeth cannot follow.
• Where they separate emotionally and physically.
• P.53 (132) – Macbeth makes it clear he is willing to kill anyone/anything that gets in his way. > contribute to L. Macbeth’s loss of her mind? (Next time we see her she has gone mad).

Playing Lady Macbeth -

• Faint – fake.
• More interesting to play her as a strong character – she is the dynamo behind Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth in Context -

• Demon, or understand/
• Must look at attitudes of the day.
• Women = no right, merely their husband’s property.
• Quicker to support their husbands, through conditioning, in order to do well themselves.
• Cannot excuse her, but maybe she is more vulnerable.
• (Would rather dash her baby’s brains out than break a promise).
• Understand baby > understand L. Macbeth.
• ‘I have given suck’ – had a baby. If I’d promised to kill this baby (as Macbeth to Duncan), however awful it may be, I would do it.
• ‘Boneless gum’ – baby died young, raw memory.
• Memory of loss, pain = burning sense of injustice about the world.
• Trauma of loss = put her in a frame of mind where murder is not such a terrible thing.
• Trying to rectify / reassert a natural justice.

Macbeth: Bringing the witches to life –

• Power going in.
• Links with each other, connection with sisters.
• What stage do they ‘get to him’?
• Witches speak his darkest thought – then becomes tangible.
• Question of fate. Told fate – will strive to it.
• Always a weakness where someone will then agree.
• Witches’ power does not just lie in witchcraft – lies in knowing their man knowing how to tempt him with his own desires and how to plunge him into turmoil – ‘why do I yield to that suggestion?’

Macbeth: the role of the witches –

• Witches are meant to scare us, but in today’s society, witchcraft is diminished.
• Shakespeare’s day – burning witches at the stake – witch scenes would have had more impact if you come from a culture that believes in witches.
• Similarity between language of witches and street speak today. Both used creatively and exclude outsiders.
• Bend words to make different meanings – ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’, Macbeth’s first words echo the witches – ‘so foul and fair a day I have not seen’.

Section A, Practice Question Plans

1. What have you found striking about Shakespeare’s presentation of death in Macbeth?

• Lots of death – striking = pace.
• Banquo’s death – surprising because it goes as quickly (1 Act) then his ghost appears. Short one lines, death and revenge link in together. Also so surprising because it is his friend – thought it would take Macbeth a long time to build up the courage.
• Metaphorically = striking – not always physical and death of relationships. Noble character – expected to always be like this (faithful). However, first meet M in battle – death is all he knows.
• Death of relationships – Macbeth and Banquo – striking – see hunger for power that he will kill his friend. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth – both on different levels (LM has to insult M’s masculinity).
• Presentation – symbolically e.g. dagger soliloquy. Animals = foreshadowing < striking, Porter also foreshadow – reels the audience in.
• Gothic texts expect to have death, blood and gore.
• Death completes a circle – there at the beginning and kicks off a series of other deaths and ends with the inevitability.
• Presented through supernatural framework – witches = catalyst of death. Supernatural = fear of death.
• Darkness.
• Macduff’s family – their death is shocking – they’re innocent – unnecessary, unprovoked, ultimate downfall, happens on stage – Macbeth less secretive and out of control. Any sympathy toward Macbeth is lost.

2. Discuss the view that Shakespeare’s main interest is not the physical horror, but in psychological depravity.

• Physical horror is there – blood etc.
• Majority of gore is off stage – language describes it – leaves to the imagination, S manipulates the audience.
• L M off stage – main character – expected to die on stage, shows M is not thinking of her?
• Dagger soliloquy = longer than any physical gore – S makes more of psychological aspects.
• Murders lead to psychological depravity.
• Looking into the mind of a mad man – endlessly fascinating.
• ‘Unseamed from nave to chops’ – led to Macbeth’s depraved mind.

3. How far do you agree that Macbeth’s gothic elements are not relevant for a modern audience?

• Supernatural = not as shocking – we are not as suspicious as Shakespearian audiences would have been. BUT still relevant if we reinterpret them into a treatment of women, racism etc … fear of the unknown, media creating ‘folk devils’.
• Witches in enigmatic set up = chorus.
• Lady Macbeth – alienation = gothic element, seductress = gothic element – still relevant – femme fatale still features profusely today (critical anthology). She has power-perfect, represents how society has change, refreshing even though used in a negative sense.
• Harder to scare a modern audience – gothic has turned to grotesque horror.
• Psychological is still relevant.

'Frankenstein', Extra Notes, Revision

Frankenstein, Extra Notes, Revision

Characterisation

Women as victims –

Can be argued that the principal women exist largely to be rescued to suffer and to die:

• Caroline, V’s mother is rescued by his father
• Caroline rescues Elizabeth, but dies after developing Scarlet Fever
• Justine is rescued from a wretched childhood, only to be put on trial and executed for the murder of William (V’s brother)
• Elizabeth is murdered by the monster on the night of her marriage to Victor

Why are the women victims? – The passivity and victimisation of J and E can be seen as both

• a function of Victor’s character
• an outcome of his obsession with the monster

Justine dies:

• direct consequence of the monster’s resentment of the circumstances of his creation.
• monster’s despair at his creator’s rejection.
• monster’s desire to take revenge on Victor for depriving him of a normal life.

Elizabeth dies:

• Victor’s preoccupation with his work causes him to delay their marriage
• Monster’s intervention to deprive Victor of a relationship he himself has been denied.

If we assume Victor has created the monster and made a second, uncontrollable version of himself, the following points emerge:

• the creature could be seen as acting as Victor’s instrument, as acting on his behalf.
• at some level, Frankenstein wills Elizabeth’s death because of his own fear of sexuality.

• Justine and Elizabeth suffer the consequences of a man with tunnel vision who does not allow the distractions of sexual love and family obligations to distract him from a pursuit of knowledge.

During the months the monster spends watching the de Laceys, the story shows:

• a lesson in human iniquity
• a lesson in family solidarity and fidelity – love and strengthen and enable individuals to triumph over adversity.

The monster then destroys this safe haven.

Walton:

Shares similar characteristics with V –

• masculine desire to explore, discover, conquer and control.
• pitches himself against nature – search for a northern sea passage.
• hopes to acquire fame.

These characteristics also have similar effect to V:

• lack of a permanent home
• lack of lasting relationship.

Walton longs for companionship – fails to find a friend among his crew – none can live up to his requirements – seeks someone like himself.

like humanity cannot live up to V’s ideas          V? recognises someone like himself

Victor Frankenstein:

• Begins the novel with; high intellectual ideas, desire to increase his knowledge and contribute to the benefit of mankind.
• As the novel develops his personality becomes increasingly obsessive and self-absorbed; as he pursues his ambition, he loses ethics and morals, his secrecy leads to loneliness.
• Overwhelmed by a narcissistic self-love
• Each time he shows signs of ‘breaking out’, he visits his family, or seeks solace in the world.
• One obsession (create monster) is replaced by another (desire to destroy monster) – always driven.
• Links with Prometheus > defies the supreme being and continues to pursue knowledge until it has fatal consequencies. P steals fire, F uses lightening to harness the monster.

Victor fears sexuality:

Chapter 4 –

• Victor runs from the lab and hides in bedroom where he falls asleep. He dreams he embraces Elizabeth, but she then transforms into the decomposing body of his mother and when V wakes, the first thing he sees is the monster.

• sex, death and the creature are linked in a single image.

• establishes a link between V’s avoidance of sexuality

(Margaret Homans) – V creating monster, he is excited, but when it is ‘born’ he rejects his own ‘child’. This motif relates to Mary Shelley’s own anxieties about childbirth – difficulties of her own pregnancies and deaths of 3 infants.

Henry Clerval

• Serves as a faithful friend.
• Powerless to save Victor from himself.
• Also eager in pursuit of knowledge, but it is more humanistic (languages) and can balance it with other aspects of life.
• When in Clerval’s company, V leads a more balanced life and is temporarily distracted from his science.
• Clerval’s death is a punishment for V failing to keep a promise.
• He is doomed to be destroyed, like V’s other friends.

The Monster

Can he be considered a Character?

YES

• Goes through stages of human maturity.
• Feelings and motivations are influenced by his conclusions of his own identity.

NO

• His humanity is in doubt.
• Hard to think of him as we do other characters in fiction.
• He is a mechanical creation.

• He is like Adam and Eve before the Fall; without knowledge of sin and guilt.
• OR
• HE is like Adam and Eve after the Fall – immediate guilt simply for being what he is.

• Displays more humanity (early in novel) than his creator – full range of emotions; anger, fear, pity.
• Initially his feelings to others are positive.
• He is also formed by the treatment of his creator.
• All images of the monster are conveyed to us in his own words / by Walton and Victor.
• No detached 3^rd person narrator.
• Our understanding of what the monster is like has to be composed from what we can understand of other narratives.
• May require us to be critical of W/V.

'Dr. Faustus', Extra Notes, Revision

Dr Faustus, Extra Notes, Revision

Themes –

• Religion and Politics – the main political satire is directed at Charles V. Faustus and Mephistopheles visit his court which reveals Charles’ excessive family pride. Has no dignity > easy target for F and M’s tricks.

• Humanism – about human aspirations and potential and human aspirations but also human limitations.

Characters –

Mephistopheles – subtle manipulator – knows when to respond to Faustus, e.g. appearance of 7 deadly sins for amusement. He is an honest character – always says the truth about the outcome. Marlowe uses M to show ‘hell’ is also an inner psychological state that delivers its keenest pain mentally: ‘my fainting soul’.

Faustus – his intellect is his strength and his weakness. He is arrogant enough to think he has power over M. Doubts the reality of hell – ‘I think hell’s a fable’ – naïve. Is F the epitome of the new Renaissance scholar? – has command of new branches of knowledge and is familiar with recent learning and geographical discoveries. Asks for knowledge after asking for a wife – shows another side of his nature; his love of sensual pleasure.

Good and evil angels – they are external, visible embodiments of the two impulses that are at war within Faustus’s mind. They contest for F’s soul. Often appear when F is wavering.

The Old Man – key character as F is now being appealed to by a fellow human being. Previously F was appealed to by non-human beings. The Old Man brings warnings to F. Uses the word ‘sweet’ more than once – demonstrates that the Old Man retains his faith in F whose soul might be redeemed.