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Shakespeare: Macbeth - Ambition and Loyalty - offline version
Objectives:
This exercise is focused on Act 1 Scene 7 but can also be related to Act 5 Scene 3. All students will understand that there is a conflict in this scene between Macbeth's ambition and his loyalty towards his King and be able to select quotations to prove this. Most will understand how Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband through insisting on loyalty to her. Some will make connections between the Macbeth's lack of loyalty and the desertion of the thanes later in the play.
National Curriculum:
En2: 1c, 1f, 1h, 1k En1: 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d, 4a, 11a, 11c
En3: 10
Resources required:
- Copies of Macbeth, a classroom with some space
Teaching Activities:
Introduction
Ask students to relate a time when they had a conflict of loyalties. Briefly discuss why loyalty is considered a virtue.
Q: Why was loyalty to the King especially important in Elizabethan times?
Activities
- Students should draw a chart, one column entitled 'Reasons to be loyal to Duncan' and the other 'Reasons to be disloyal'. They should select relevant quotations from the entire scene to fill in the chart.
- Arrange students in a circle. Macbeth should stand in the middle of the circle. In modern English, but drawing on the ideas in their chart, students should try to persuade Macbeth either to remain loyal, or to become a traitor. Macbeth should remain silent until he has heard all the arguments. Then he should make up his mind which course of action he will take, giving a reason.
- Class discussion based on findings.
Q: Which argument does Macbeth find most compelling, and why?
Q: How important an issue is disloyalty later in the play?
Summary
Discussion: Do you feel Macbeth made the right decision in the circumstances? How much sympathy do you have for him now?
Suggested homework:
- Find five examples of characters referring to loyalty in Act 5 scene 3. Loyalty is still considered important today. Skim through a newspaper and find 3 stories which relate somehow to loyalty or disloyalty.
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