04 Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5 Full Commentary and Analysis

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This video is a line-by-line walkthrough guide for William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 5.

I provide a close reading of the entire scene, including:
— Detailed explication
— Commentary
— Literary analysis

All commentary is supplemented by in-text, line-by-line study notes designed to help students:
— Prepare for GCSE, A-Level, IB, and AP evaluation
— Prepare for general high school and college quizzes, exams, and essays
— Generate ideas for analysis essays
— Participate knowledgeably in class discussions
Click here to download the annotated text of Macbeth: https://sites.google.com/view/shakespeare-walkthrough/home

This video discusses :

PLOT:
— Lady Macbeth is excited to read Macbeth’s letter about the witches’ prophecies.
— She worries that Macbeth is “too full of the milk of human kindness" to murder Duncan, so she resolves to encourage him.
— She learns that Duncan is coming to visit, and calls on evil spirits to “unsex” her, make her strong enough to murder him.
— Macbeth arrives home and listens excitedly to Lady Macbeth’s plans for murder.

CHARACTER:
— Lady Macbeth: ambitious; manipulative; negative mother figure; knows her husband well; defines manhood as pure masculine strength, minus feminine compassion
— Macbeth: revealed as generally good, moral, “full of the milk of human kindness,” childlike, incapable of deceit; wholly under Lady Macbeth’s spell; child trying to please cold, demanding mother.

THEME:
— Appearance vs reality
— Distorted definition of manhood as pure masculine strength, minus feminine compassion; tragedy arising from this
— Alienation from self; tragedy arising from lack of self knowledge
— Ambition; hubris
— Manipulation