Shakespeare: Macbeth - Guilt and Conscience - offline version
Objectives:
This lesson is focused on Act 5 scene 1 and Act 1 scene 7 - Act 2 scene 2. Depending on your students' familiarity with the text this may take one or two lessons.
All students will understand that Lady Macbeth's conscience emerges in her sleepwalking scene. Most will be able to make connections fluently between the scenes. Some will be aware of how Lady Macbeth's conscience breaks through in counterpoint with Macbeth's suppression of his own..
National Curriculum:
En2: 1b, 1c, 1d, 1f, 1h, 1k En1: 4a, 11a, 11b
Resources required:
Teaching Activities:
Introduction
Brainstorm instances in the play where Lady Macbeth suppresses her conscience. Re-read Act 5 scene 1 if necessary.
Activities
- In pairs or small groups, look over everything Lady Macbeth says in Act 5 scene 1 and match it up with something either she herself said, or Macbeth said from Act 1 scene 7 - Act 2 scene 2. Students will need to copy out the earlier quotation, prefaced by a cue word in a different colour.
- Students should practise acting out Lady Macbeth's part in Act 5 scene 1, one student reading her lines in this scene, the other(s) echoing earlier utterances after each sentence.
- Hear some or all performances.
Summary
Q: Why is Lady Macbeth unable to suppress her conscience in Act 5 scene 1?
Q: How does her change contrast with Macbeth's?
Suggested homework:
Written task: how has Lady Macbeth changed between Act 1 and Act 5? You might break down the task into paragraphs on BEHAVIOUR, LANGUAGE, and RELATIONSHIP WITH MACBETH.
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