Macbeth Act II

Today we began reading Act II of Macbeth. Students began working on the following assignment, which will be completed in class tomorrow:

Macbeth hallucinates and sees a gory dagger leading him to Duncan’s bedchamber.
• Why does Macbeth believe he is seeing the dagger?
• Will this be Macbeth’s final hallucination? Why or why not?
Use the text to provide support.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings]
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Macbeth

Today we began viewing the film version of Macbeth. We watched the first 6 scenes.

Congratulations

Great job period 4. I will get started on your reward.

Open ended response

After finishing Act I, scene 3 of Macbeth, the students wrote a response to the following:


Macbeth thinks about what the witches have told him.

• How is he responding emotionally to what he has learned?
• Do you think he will leave it to “chance”? Why or why not?

Use the passage to provide support for your responses



This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.

Macbeth Readings

Macbeth-Audacity

We are currently creating a dramatic reading of Act I, scene 1 of Macbeth using the audio mixing software Audacity. The final projects will be posted here and voted on.

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