Pivotal Moments in Macbeth

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Act 1

Scene 1

Setting: A desolate place

Thunder and Lightning

"When shall we three meet again"

The Globe Theatre would have been a very noisy atmosphere, so a clap of thunder would have been a great way to start a play because it gained the attention of the audience.

Pathetic Fallacy

Uncertain

Mysterious

Their meeting has finished - we don't know what is was about, leaving the reader curious to find out more.

By the end of the scene, the audience is really none the wiser about what is going on.

The witches speak in trochaic tetrameter.

Chant-like

The witches often rhyme

Throughout the play, rhyming is connected to the witches and the supernatural.

Sinister - similar to a nursery rhyme.

Scene 4

"Stars, hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires."

"The eye wink at the hand"

Rhyme, the witches have enchanted Macbeth.

Motif of eyes and hands

Contrast of light and darkness

Scene 1

"Is this a dagger which I see before me."

"A dagger of the mind, a false creation."

Macbeth is hallucinating, seeing a dagger which then becomes blood stained.

The witches plot to meet Macbeth after the battle.

Scene 2

"Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more: / Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep."

Theme of sleep

Macbeth's actions disturb his sleep.