Violence Essay Plan

Question 1

Point 1 + quotations for violence:

Answer 1

Violence is presented throughout the play as being used to gain and maintain power. The play opens with violence with the setting of a battle.

• “with his brandish’d steel / Which smok’d with bloody execution,”

Question 1

Point 2 + quotations for violence:

Answer 1

This form of justified violence to maintain power is contrasted by the violence which is presented as being used in a more malicious sense to gain power by Lady Macbeth.

• have pluck’d [her] nipple from his boneless gums and dash’d the brains out” from a “smiling”

Question 2

Point 3 + quotations for violence:

Answer 2

One other aspect about violence in the play is when it is used in an unjustifiable and subversive way it leads to a vicious cycle of depravity.

• “It will have blood they say: blood will have blood”

“[he is] in blood stepp’d in so far” that “returning were as tedious as going o’er”

Question 3

Point 4 + quotations for violence:

Answer 3

When we see Lady Macbeth towards the end of the play deteriorate into a state of madness, we realise that misguided violence can have an immense psychological impact on people involved in the violence.

• “Out damned spot! Out I say!”
• “one two, why, then tis ‘time to do ‘t”

Question 4

Point 5 + quotations for violence:

Answer 4

Violence is shown as having huge negative consequences on the person who uses it to achieve their own ambitions.

• “give to th’edge o’th’sword” [Macduff’s] wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls”
• “holding Macbeth’s head”