 Hello and happy half-term. Now, in this series of videos that I'm going to be releasing, I'm going to be doing some special half-term revision videos covering different areas of both English language and literature, especially for those of you in year 11, because remember that now this is the countdown. These are the final months before you go into your final GCSE exams in this summer. Okay, so of course, these half-term lessons are basically meant to show you how to write grade 8, grade 9 model responses, but also to show you how you can really maximise your time, especially as your holidays get shorter and the time towards your GCSE is near. So in this particular revision session, I will be looking at how to write a response to the 2021 Macbeth exam. Okay, so this is the question that came up in the 2021 exams and more specifically, this question presents you with a scene from Act 2, Scene 2 and it asks you to comment and to write about the relationship of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Now, today's revision video will be slightly different to my usual ones in terms of the approach that I take, because a lot of you guys have always been saying, okay, Barbara, it's great, you know, you've been showing us how to do grade 9 model answers, but for those of us who just want to really maximise on our time, we don't necessarily have the ability to perhaps write five paragraphs to try and aim for the four marks. How can we still try to aim and write really good responses, which are grade 7 and grade 8 levels? Okay, so what I'm going to be showing you how to do is to still try to push yourself, but how you can write less, i.e. four paragraphs, which would still secure you a grade 8, which is equivalent of an A in your final GCSE. So let's get started. So now remember, when it comes to the Macbeth portion of your exam, you always have 50 minutes to answer the Macbeth question. Okay, so remember you've got 50 minutes to answer this particular question. Subdivide it into the following. Spend around 10 minutes planning, around 35 minutes writing, and then spend the remaining five minutes just quickly checking if you have made any obvious spelling errors, etc. etc. That's how I would suggest allocating your time to this portion of the exam. So let's have a look at the 2021 Macbeth exam question and how it was worded. As I mentioned, it is taken from Act 2, Scene 2 within Macbeth. Okay, you always get the extract given to you, and then you're asked to not only talk about the extract, but then also elsewhere in the play as a whole. So let's have a look at what came up within this particular extract. Let's read through it and then look at the question. So this point in the play Macbeth has murdered Duncan and returned to Lady Macbeth. Okay, so we know that this is a scene whereby Macbeth has just killed King Duncan, and we should know based on our own knowledge of the play that at this stage is really shaken. Macbeth, may thought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more. Macbeth does murder sleep. So this is really, really powerful. Make sure, of course, as I'm doing, you're reading this with your highlighter intact. The innocent sleep sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast. Basically what Macbeth is saying here is that I'm super traumatized after having killed the king. I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again. How does his wife respond, Lady Macbeth? What do you mean? So she's kind of confused. She's saying, why are you so shaken up? Macbeth, still a cry, sleep no more to all the house. Glamis had murdered sleep and therefore Caudal shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more. So he's basically saying, look, I am absolutely horrified at what I've done, having killed the king. And I just don't feel like I'll be able to sleep again because I'm so haunted by my actions. Lady Macbeth, who was it that thus cried? Why were they thin? You do unbend your noble strength to think so brainlessly of things. Go, get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hands. So Lady Macbeth here is already telling him, look, you're thinking too much into it. And then she's commanding him. She's saying, go, just wash your hands. You'll be fine. Okay. So of course, we can already see that there's a massive power dynamic between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth basically is telling him what to do. Macbeth is the one that's really shaken. Why do you bring these daggers to the place? They must lie there. Go carry them and smear the sleepy grooms with blood. So Macbeth has come back with the evidence and Lady Macbeth is saying, look, take it back to King Duncan's room and put it on his guards. Macbeth, I'll go no more. I'm afraid to think what I've done. Look on it again. I dare not. So Macbeth says, nope, no way. Lady Macbeth, in firm of purpose. So she's just saying, what rubbish? Give me the daggers. The sleeping in the dead of butters pictures. Because the eye of childhood that fares a painted devil. So this is really, really powerful. What she's basically saying here is that Macbeth, you're actually a scary cat. It's only, you know, dead bodies just look like pictures. And it's only children who are scared of scary pictures. If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms with all for it must seem their guilt. So she basically says, look, give me the daggers, you're a baby. Dead bodies just look like still pictures, still shots of people and only children are scared of pictures. So she's mocking Macbeth's fear of seeing King Duncan's dead body again, as well as his sleeping grooms, and grooms meaning gods. And she says, look, I'm just going to do it myself. I'm going to put all the blood on these grooms and make it look as if they were the ones that committed this crime. So that's the extract that we're given. Now, we should always anticipate. So if you are revising for Macbeth, you should always anticipate, of course, you're going to get a question with an extract. You have to answer the question based on the extract. But of course, you also have to talk about elsewhere in the play, you need to show your awareness of other parts of the play. So starting with this conversation, keywords, explore how Shakespeare presents the relationships we're looking for keywords here between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. And we're asked to write about how Shakespeare presents a relationship in the extract. And how Shakespeare presents a relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole. Now, as I mentioned, guys, going to be taking a slightly different tact today with this particular lesson. I'm going to be showing you a way more simplified way of putting together your essay to still try and secure a grade eight. Okay, so this is not going to be a grade nine essay, but still grade eight is a territory. And if I were to approach this question, and especially when I'm answering and planning this, okay, so this is the initial 10 minutes of planning, how would I approach it? If I were to go for grade eight, I would literally focus in terms of structuring my essay on selecting two points from the play. Okay, so two quotations from the play related to the relationship of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as a whole. But then two additional points from elsewhere in the play so that I am addressing both bullet points. Okay, remember, each bullet point is worth half of the overall marks, we've got 30 marks, and of course, four extra marks, but really focus on the 30 marks, and therefore see each bullet point is worth 50 marks roughly. If you only talk about the extract, you're limiting yourself to 15 marks. And of course, if you don't put enough from the players, the whole you're limiting yourself. Okay, so I would suggest take two things from the extract and two things from elsewhere. But of course, also remember when you are answering this question, you need to show your awareness of general themes that Shakespeare is trying to reinforce within the play and in relation to this question, and of course, context. So here we are asked to focus on how is the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth shown. Clearly from this extract, we can see who's in charge. It's Lady Macbeth. Their relationship is inverted. Traditionally, especially during this period, the Jacobean era. Okay, so now this is context, the Jacobean era. Men and husbands were seen as in charge of the home. They were the ones that were commanding the wives to do whatever they wanted them to do, whilst it's the wives that were supposed to be submissive. However, here we can clearly see Lady Macbeth is taken on this more traditional role, whilst Macbeth is the one that's submissive. She's the one that's telling him, she's even mocking him whilst he's the one that's shocked at the site of blood and so on. So what would I select? My first point would probably be related to what Macbeth keeps on repeatedly alluding to, which is to do with sleep. Okay, so here he keeps on saying, sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep, the repetition. Okay, and this is a structural technique. Of course, remember, when you're answering these questions, you need to make sure you're alluding to both language and structure. So I would mention sleep, the fact that he's so haunted by what he sees. And in contrast to him, his wife is totally fine because she asks him almost like quite blasé, right? So she has this monosyllabic response. Monosyllabic means like quick syllables. You can say one word in just one clap. Okay, so her monosyllabic response. What do you mean? There's a massive contrast in their power. Okay, so we can see here that contextually, so I'd probably make a context point here. Okay, so this would be in relation to my first point, the inverted relationship in the extract. And of course, what I would mention in relation to context is this is atypical. So it's not normal in Jacobean relationships and Jacobean marriages even. Lady Macbeth's forward nature, the way she's, you know, assertive and quite composed, especially in relation to death, this would have shocked a lot of Jacobean people. And of course, also the fact that she has so much control even over her husband would have been really, really shocking. Now, I'll then just select another part of the text to talk about and especially how Lady Macbeth addresses him. Okay, the way she speaks to him. Once more, we can see that she's clearly the mastermind within their relationship. She's the one that spearheads and really, really guides how they commit the murder and how they rise to power and especially here, where she's speaking to him, she speaks to him in this imperative sentence in this command sentence, give me the daggers. Okay, so this is an imperative sentence. That's a structural point. But then also she says, the sleeping the dead butters pictures to the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil. Here she's speaking using an extended metaphor. She's basically saying dead people just look like, you know, still shot, still images and you're really silly for being really, really scared of these dead people. And what this illustrates so here, because I've talked about context, I'll probably mention theme. This illustrates how completely corrupted Lady Macbeth is with ambition. Okay, so we can see here that she's totally corrupt. She's quite brutal. She's quite blood thirsty. But she is the one who makes Macbeth and influences Macbeth to become just as equally blood thirsty as she is. Okay, so from the second part of the extract, I'll specifically mention Lady Macbeth and specifically how she is so ambitious that she is blood thirsty. Okay, and of course, here, I'm going to tie it to the theme of ambition. Okay, so this is my very, very basic plan that I'm going to be writing. These are the two points related to the extract. But of course, I've got to think about what else I will talk about from the play as a whole. I think also to reinforce how inverted the relationship is, even much earlier in the play, Macbeth initially hesitates, he refuses to kill the king. And he says, we will proceed no further in this business. He basically tells Lady Macbeth, look, I know I'd agreed initially to kill the king, but I've changed my mind. I'm not going to kill him. And then she says, what? When you just do it, then you were a man. In other words, she manipulates him into killing the king by saying, if you don't kill the king, I'm not going to see you as a man. And she speaks using these powerful, alliterative terms, right? Durst and do it. But to make him feel easily manipulated into wanting to prove his masculinity. Now, of course, what this is illustrating, again, is that Lady Macbeth is extremely ambitious, just quite controlling. And this led contextually, so to make another context point here, they said a lot of Jacobean people to see her as not being a typical woman, women are supposed to not be ambitious, they're supposed to just really dot on their husbands, listen to what the husband said. And so a lot of Jacobeans called her the fourth witch. So I'd mentioned that as my third point from elsewhere in the play and then my fourth and final point from elsewhere in the play would be well after this occurs in act five, where we see there's now a distance that grows between them. Lady Macbeth on the one hand grows crazy. Macbeth increasingly sidelines her. He becomes completely corrupted with his ambition. He also becomes very paranoid. And he even he becomes so distant from her. So rather than seeing her as somebody who he can confide in, he becomes certainly distant. He doesn't realize she goes crazy and he doesn't he's not even present when she dies. And when she's when he is told that she has died, Macbeth kind of annoyed me. He's quite irritated. He says she should have died hereafter. She should have died hereafter. What he's saying here in other words is how knowing that she decided to die at this stage. I'm right in the middle of a war. This is when now there's the war that Macduff Malcolm lead against him. And he says, I wish you should have chosen a better time to commit suicide, right? Once more, we can see that in contrast to earlier on and of course in contrast to even what we see here where Macbeth really kind of follows exactly what Lady Macbeth is telling him what to do. Later on by act five, their relationship has become extremely distant and detached, okay? And even he says, you know, there would have been time for such a word. And what this is illustrating is Macbeth now grows indifferent to his wife, Lady Macbeth, okay? And what this is illustrating and I'm probably going to talk about the theme of the supernatural is how the supernatural has completely corrupted him and consumed him. It's made him paranoid, cruel, he's become a tyrant and he doesn't even care about his wife, okay? So this is my quick plan that I'll draw up if I were to answer this particular 2021 exam questions. So not going to waste any time and as I mentioned guys, this is going to be written at grade eight level. So we're going to cut away everything else. We're going to just dive straight into paragraphs one, two, three and four, no intro and no conclusion. And usually when I'm going through especially the grade nine essays, I always suggest intro three points from the extract, two points from elsewhere before you conclude. However, we're going to cut away all of that but I still will show you how you can still write really powerful grade eight response, okay? So I'm going to start off and this is the 2021 AQA exam, okay? So this is Macbeth, the 2021 exam model answer starting off with this initial point and I'm going to relate it to this idea of ambition and how their relationship is presented as inverted. Right, so let's have a look at this first point, okay? So this is of course in relation to the first point that I'll be raising relating to the extract, okay? The inverted relationship. I'm using the peel paragraph structure. All my paragraphs are always written using the peel format, point, evidence, explanation, links. So I'm going to walk you through how I've put together this first paragraph. Firstly, it's evident that Lady Macbeth's relationship, see Lady Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship seems inverted. It's inside out, back to front. That's what I'm saying in my opening point, but I'm not done. To be sure, they go against the conventional Jacobian relationship whereby the husband was dominant and the wife and his wife was submissive. Here in my opening point I have made it really clear that number one, in relation to the question, so I'll keep on referring back to the keywords within the question, I'm making it clear to my examiner that I know how to answer the question and know what the question requires of me. I'm basically saying that the relationship seems inverted and it goes against how typical relationships were at the time. Macbeth is the submissive one, whilst his wife is the one that seems dominant. Now moving on to the first E of my pill paragraph, the evidence. Macbeth seems shaken after Kill's King Duncan as he cries, he will, evidence, I'm embedding the evidence, sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep. His wife simply replies, what do you mean? So of course I've quoted these three separate bits of evidence and I've embedded them. Here's my explanation where I'm going to include context. Shakespeare repeats sleep to emphasise how shaken and emotional Macbeth seems, yet Lady Macbeth's monosyllabic replies reveals she dominates their marriage. Contextually, this is how to include context. Jacobians would have been surprised at how assertive and composed Lady Macbeth is. They would have equally been shocked at how shaken Macbeth seemed. So here I'm making it really clear firstly that their relationship is quite inverted, clarifying that, I'm also including techniques really, really vital to including your writing, but I'm then also mentioning that from a Jacobean perspective, so this is Shakespeare's audience at the time, this would have been really, really shocking. Their relationship would almost have been unacceptable. So now here's the final L in my pill paragraph, okay I've opened up my point, evidence I explained and added context. Now here's the link linking back to the keywords in the question. Hence, Macbeth seems evidently dominated by his wife, who appeared to direct all his actions after killing the king. This is relating it back to their relationship. That's my first point, but of course I'm not done with the extract as of yet, so I need to now talk about how their relationship seems to be very, very heavily dominated with Lady Macbeth and she speaks to him, you know, using this imperative language and she's just very, very ambitious and of course I'm going to tie this into the theme of ambition. Right, let's go over the second paragraph. This is going to be the second and final paragraph in relation to the extract itself. Additionally, it's evident that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's relationship is dominated by Lady Macbeth, okay so of course I'm relating it back to the keywords and then the question. In fact, she is the mastermind behind the plot to kill King Duncan. She becomes impatient with his lamenting. Lamenting means that he's really, really sad, I can't believe I did this. So she becomes impatient with his lamenting and she takes the lead when returning the daggers to King Duncan's room. That's my opening point, I've made it really, really clear who dominates the relationship and how the relationship is presented to us. Now here's the evidence, the first E in my peel paragraph. She furiously tells Macbeth to evidence, give me the daggers, before mocking him by asserting that, the sleeping in the dead abut his pictures. That's my evidence. Shakespeare, now this is my explanation where I'm now going to include the theme of ambition. Shakespeare just picks her speaking in an imperative sentence to show how much he dominates Macbeth. The metaphor pictures illustrates how unmoved she is by dead bodies. Shakespeare uses a character to pick the theme of ambition as she is so corrupted by her lust and thirst for power that she becomes insensitive to her husband and even the sight of death. That's my explanation where I not only talk about the use of structure, imperative sentence and language metaphor but I equally tie it to theme. Now this is the link. Consequently it's clear that Lady Macbeth controls her relationship or their relationship even, so it becomes clear that she controls their relationship. She uses her husband as her tool to attain power. That's the second point and of course it's the final point from the extract itself. Now that I'm done with this first bullet point I'll then move on to now my two additional points related to elsewhere in the play as a whole. You will be limiting your marks if you don't do that so make sure you have at least two points from elsewhere in the play. So I'm going to move on to my third appeal paragraph and this is to do with elsewhere in the play. So now let's look at the third point relating to elsewhere in the play. Moreover earlier in the play Macbeth is depicted as being manipulated by Lady Macbeth. When he refuses to kill King Duncan Lady Macbeth cleverly controls him by questioning his masculinity. This leads Macbeth to murder the king in order to prove himself to her. That's the opening point showing and relating to how their relationship is presented but earlier on beyond the extract. Even if Macbeth, now this is the evidence even if Macbeth attempts to assert his control when he claims we will proceed no further Lady Macbeth rebuffs him so she says no. She tells him when you dust do it then you're a man. So that's now my evidence again I'm juxtaposing Macbeth versus Lady Macbeth he's trying to assert his power but then she says no I'm not listening. Her alliterative language now this is her use of alliteration when she harshly forces him to dust do it reveals a stark power dynamic. She is shrewd which means clever and she realizes that she can control Macbeth by questioning his manhood. This led many Jacobians now here I'm adding some context to view her as the fourth witch in the play. She ran contrary to the expectations of women as wives were expected to be passive and submissive. Her controlling nature led many to see her as unnatural and evil so now that's my explanation where I've delved deeper into both language techniques that Shakespeare uses but equally context. Now this is the final link thus I learned the play it is abundantly evident that Lady Macbeth controlled Macbeth in their relationship. I'll make a quick link back to the question so I'm now going to move on to my second and final elsewhere in the play paragraph okay so obviously it's going to be my fourth and final paragraph but this is the second elsewhere in the play paragraph remember that you need to try to aim one answer in this question this Macbeth question to go for at least two paragraphs for the play as a whole. So I'm now going to talk about how Macbeth is really indifferent to her he doesn't really care that she's you know and become sick and this is because he becomes completely corrupted with ambition so this is now the final paragraph. So this is the fourth and final paragraph for this essay. Finally as the play develops we witness a sudden shift in their relationship. As Macbeth becomes more consumed with his need for power he grows distant to Lady Macbeth by act five he's so distant that he seems indifferent to her death that's my opening point showing now a shift in their relationship. When Satan tells him that Lady Macbeth committed suicide he sharply states she should have died here after that's my evidence this declarative sentence is astounding unlike earlier in the play where Macbeth deeply cared for his wife by this point he seems distant and indifferent he's now so paranoid and focused on maintaining power that he casts his wife aside. Shakespeare uses this to warn his audience of the dangers of trust in the supernatural so now here I'm going from this declarative sentence to talking about the theme of the supernatural. He uses the theme of the supernatural to illustrate how trusting in the witches can completely corrupt someone. Macbeth's trust in the witches made him become a paranoid tyrannical king who did not care for his wife that's my explanation okay where I've now added the theme of the supernatural and of course I mentioned declarative sentence which is a structure point now this is my link hence the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth completely crumbles by act five once Macbeth is consumed of power he grows distant from his wife so that is how I would suggest you can put together a really really strong a really solid grade eight paragraph in four separate points okay rather a grade a essay in four separate paragraphs just quickly recap we looked at this particular Macbeth question which is part of the 2021 exam so this is really how if you don't have time to do the intro three points from the extract two points from also end conclusion you can still go for your grade eight or at the very least a high grade seven right so let's say you only have enough time to just do the three paragraphs that I would argue it's still going to give you a very good solid grade seven okay but of course as you can see you still need to layer in a lot of detail and a lot of depth in each of your paragraphs so that's all for now thank you so much for listening and do come back to tomorrow's lesson we're going to be looking at the 2021 unseen poetry