Macbeth - Act 2 Questions
1. How does Banquo feel about the meeting with the witches? How does Macbeth
interpret Banquo’s future actions?
2. What does Macbeth envision on his way to murder Duncan and what is its importance?
3. What is Macbeth doing in his soliloquy?
4. What reason does Lady Macbeth give for not murdering Duncan herself?
5. At what approximate time was Duncan killed? Why is this significant?
6. What does Macbeth do that could possibly ruin the plan? How is this rectified? By
whom?
7. In what state of mind is Macbeth compared to Lady Macbeth?
8. What does Macbeth wish the knocking could do?
9. Why is the voice that says “Macbeth doth murder sleep” important?
10. Why did Shakespeare have Duncan’s murder take place off stage?
11. Who discovers Duncan’s murder?
12. Who does Lennox blame for the murders? Why is this significant?
13. How does Macbeth deviate from Lady Macbeth’s original plan? Why is this so
important?
14. What symbolism does Lady Macbeth's fainting have and how is it ironic?
15. Why do Malcolm and Donalbain decide to flee?
16. Explain how a pathetic fallacy occurs in this act.
17. Who is named King? Why?
Act II Quotations
Identify the following quotations by stating who is speaking, who is being spoken to, and how
the quotation is of importance.
1. “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.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
2. “Methought, I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep,’ – the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast - ”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
3. “Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
4. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
5. “A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it then?”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
6. “Ring the alarum bell! Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself!”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
7. “Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done’t.
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood.
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows. They stared, and were distracted,
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
8. “Had I but died an hour before this event
I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
9. “What will you do? Let’s not consort with them.
To show unfelt sorrow is an offence
Which the false man does easy.
I’ll go to England.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
10. “Our separated fortunes shall keep us both the safer.
Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles.
The nearer in blood, the nearer bloody.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
11. “’Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last
A falcon tow’ring in her pride of place
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance:
12. “Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up.
Thine own life means! Then ‘tis most like
The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.”
Speaker:
Listener:
Significance: