CHARACTER ANALYSES

METHOD

In this part of the package you will find analyses and questions on the most important character in the play. Having read and possibly seen the play, and having worked through the play in detail in the previous section, you are now ready to think about the characters and their operation in the play as a whole. Your job is to read through the analyses given here, then answer the questions based on your own reading of the play and the analysis you have read.

TIMINGS

Each of the characters here will take a different amount of time, because you will work to a different level of detail depending on the importance of the character. As a rough guide, though, you should take no more than an hour on the longest and no less than thirty minutes on the shortest of the tasks. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are obviously the longest, with Malcolm and Lady Macduff representing only a few questions. Altogether, I would expect the whole character section of the package to take around five hours.

OBJECTIVES

By the time you have worked through the tasks in this section, you will have:

Distinguished between the main characters in the play;

Discussed their motivation for action;

Evaluated the actions of characters and their contributions to the play’s themes;

Evaluated the dramatic functions of the character.

Characters:

Macbeth

Lady Macbeth

Banquo

Macduff

Duncan

Malcolm

The Witches

Lady Macduff

Congratulations, you have now completed the text and character work on Macbeth. To revise your work, or to look at other aspects of Shakespeare, Drama and Macbeth , click on "NEXT". If you wish to leave the pack now, click on "English Index" on the left hand side of the page