Macbeth CW/HW Packet: Week One
Shakespeare Uncovered Questions
1. What event from the play fires Macbeth’s drive to become king?
2. What characteristic or personal trait undoes Macbeth and leads to his downfall?
3. Explain how an audience in Shakespeare’s time would have viewed witches and the supernatural
differently than we do.
4. What do we know about the actual historical figure of Macbeth?
5. What is the essential question about Macbeth that even Shakespearean scholars disagree about?
6. Is the Macbeths’ marriage a good and happy one?
7. How does the murder affect Macbeth’s personality as the play goes on?
8. In what contrasting way does Lady Macbeth’s personality change after the murder?
9. What does the actor mean when he says that Skakespeare “doesn’t hold characters at arm’s length”?
10. From this video, do you think the character of Macbeth is at all sympathetic, or just evil?
Act I, Scene I Questions
1. What do you think “fair is foul, and foul is fair means”?
2. The play opens on the Scottish moors, what effect does this setting have on the tone of the play?
Act I, Scene II Questions
3. What do we learn about Macbeth’s strengths from the information revealed in this scene?
4. What will happen to the Thane of Cawdor for his treachery?
Act I, Scene III
5. What do we learn about the nature of the witches based on the story about the sailor’s wife?
6. What are the prophecies shared with Macbeth and Banquo?
7. How does each man react to the prophecies- do they have the same reaction or are they different?
8. What does each man’s reaction say about their personalities?
Act I, Scene IV
9. How does the rebel than react to his execution?
10. How do we begin to see Macbeth’s ambition stirring inside him?