So you now know the play – but how do you structure your essay?

This clean & simple new guide from Accolade Press will walk you through how to plan and structure essay responses to questions on Shakespeare's Macbeth. By working through seven mock questions, these detailed essay plans will show you how to go about building a theme based answer – while the accompanying notes will illustrate not only how to masterfully structure your response, but also how to ensure all AQA's key Assessment Objectives are being satisfied. 

William Shakespeare's Macbeth – a play brimming with ambition, murder, guilt, tragedy, a king (in fact, a few), and of course witches – has been the focus of GCSE study for years. Yet whereas other guides focus on plot and dissect scenes one by one, ours seeks to demystify the art of writing essays by using a thematic approach that explicitly meets the criteria outlined in the exam board's specification.

By indicating as we go along how we are meeting these assessment objectives (be it the need to include historical background, or to engage in close language analysis), our exemplar materials offers a chance to make sense of the mark scheme and understand how best to maximise marks.

With over one hundred five star product ratings on Amazon, we are excited to be assisting students in enhancing their creative thinking skills and making major improvements to their grades. Level up your grades with us today.

A few quotes from customers:

My daughter... found this guide invaluable. It is really useful how it explain the marking system and what is expected of the student. It is usually rare to find example exam questions in other booklets but in this one it shows exactly how to write an essay answer and how to structure it so it is easy to write. It also helped her to analyse extracts and key quotes.

Excellent study guide which my son throughly enjoyed working with. The book was easy to navigate and really helped my son understand the context of Macbeth.

My daughter loved the style of this study guide and finds them easy to follow as it shows you how to answer a question step by step.

About the author: R.P. Davis has a First Class degree in English Literature from UCL, and a Masters in Literature from Cambridge University. Aside from teaching GCSE English (which he's done for nearly a decade now), he has also written a string of bestselling thriller novels. In his free time, he listens to podcasts on physics, food and technology, and even develops the odd app on the side.

Shopping? You can purchase our guide to Macbeth in print paperback from any of the following highly-rated retailers. (Available in digital ebook, too).

Alternatively, you can purchase and download an electronically delivered PDF directly from us here.

Accolade's English revision textbooks are a uniquely exam focused series, aimed at decoding works of literature in a way that focuses on themes and on helping students understand what is expected of them so they can most readily reach the stars. Develop the tools to attack questions on any topic -- be it setting, characters or imagery -- with purpose and aplomb!

Studying Romeo and Juliet with AQA instead? Click here.

Looking to revise the Power and Conflict poetry paper? View our edition on the anthology here.

SAMPLE from the guide

Essay Plan One: Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 3 of Macbeth and answer the question that follows.

At this point in the play, Macbeth and Banquo have just encountered the three witches. 

MACBETH 

[Aside] Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.--I thank you, gentlemen.

[Aside] 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.

Starting with this extract, write about how Shakespeare portrays the supernatural. 

Write about:

• how Shakespeare portrays the supernatural in this extract

• how Shakespeare portrays the supernatural in the play as a whole

Introduction

It’s important to keep the introduction short and sweet, but also to ensure it packs a punch – after all, you only have one chance to make a first impression on the examiner. I recommend starting the introduction with a short comment on historical context to score early AO3 marks. I would then suggest that you very quickly summarize the thematic gist of your essay. 

In this instance, I score early AO3 marks by invoking a titbit of history that places Macbeth in context. After this, I keep things short and sweet, hinting at the approach I am about to take.

“Given that Shakespeare’s England was a place preoccupied with the supernatural –indeed, Elizabeth I even went so far as to pass a Witchcraft Act in 1592, outlawing ‘Conjurations’ – it is little surprise that such phenomena permeate his plays. Macbeth’s reaction to the witches in this extract not only highlights the sexualisation of the supernatural and the deep ambivalence it induces, but also points to its capacity to galvanise.”1  

Theme/Paragraph One: Shakespeare presents Macbeth’s encounter with the witches – the play’s chief supernatural entities – as something sordid, sleazy and even sexual. 

• The sibilant phrase ‘supernatural soliciting’ that Macbeth deploys to characterise the witches’ words is striking: the word ‘soliciting’ contains resonances of prostitution, as if to imply that the witches – like prostitutes – were attempting to pedal sordid sexual services. It also lends the witches a Faustian dimension: Macbeth can have what he desires, but only if he is willing to pay a moral price.2 [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote; AO2 for the close analysis of the language].

• When approached with a Freudian eye, the description of Macbeth’s physical state in this extract further reinforces the idea his encounter with the witches had an almost sexual dimension.3 Although Macbeth protests that the encounter was ‘horrid,’ the primitivity with which he describes his physical response is reminiscent of sexual arousal: ‘[it] doth unfix my hair / And make my seated heart knock at my ribs.’ That the phrase ‘knock at my ribs’ constitutes two inverted, spondaic feet emphasises Macbeth’s physical disarray: the metre mimics his hammering, excited heart.4 One might note that the superstitious Jacobean audience believed not only that the voices of witches took a devastating toll on a listener, but also that a woman’s voice was physically linked to her sexual organs.5 [AO2 for the close analysis of the language; AO3 for invoking historical context that deepens our understanding of the text].

• Elsewhere in the play: In the passage just before this extract, the witches’ own words draw attention to their sexually charged nature. The First Witch talks about following a sailor to Aleppo, a passage that ends with ‘I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do’ – a clear allusion to fornication.  

Theme/Paragraph Two: The supernatural induces deep ambivalence – and doubt – in those who encounter it.

• Macbeth is at once both excited by the witches’ predictions, yet also repulsed by them. This paradoxical sentiment is captured in his verdict that their words, ‘cannot be good, cannot be ill.’ Indeed, the use of litotes here – Macbeth rhetorically avoids labelling the witches’ words outright as ‘good’ and ‘ill’ – further accentuates his uncertain state of mind.6 [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote; AO2 for the close analysis of the language].  

• Macbeth interrogates both the ‘ill’ and ‘good’ sensations the ‘supernatural soliciting’ induces in him, and finds reason to doubt both. Interestingly, Macbeth’s ambivalence extends to the thoughts of murder that the supernatural predictions have inspired. The very fact he alludes to murder in this soliloquy implicitly communicates a desire to carry it out, whereas his visceral reaction to the idea – it 'shakes so [his] single state of man’ – communicates his disgust. [AO2 for the close analysis of the language].  

• Elsewhere in the play: One might draw a contrast with Macbeth’s encounter with Banquo’s ghost later in the play. On that occasion, Macbeth’s reaction is not ambivalent; it is characterised by full-blown horror: ‘look on that / Which might appal the devil.’

Theme/Paragraph Three: Shakespeare presents the witches, and the supernatural forces they embody, as an affront to, and an inversion of, the natural order. 

• Although when Macbeth uses the phrase ‘against the use of nature’ he is talking about his pounding heart, it is not unreasonable to construe that phrase also as a hint of Macbeth’s understanding of the supernatural entities who have set his heart racing. The witches represent a force that is at odds with – or even antagonistic to – the natural order of things. To Macbeth’s mind, the supernatural is also anti-natural. [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote; AO2 for the close analysis of the language].  

• The soliloquy’s final sentiment – ‘Nothing is / but what is not’ – implies that the only things that exist are those things that do not exist, and is a testament to how the witches have turned the natural order inside out. The line break after ‘is’ constitutes an effective use of form: the pause it encourages ensures that there is a brief verbal nothingness to mirror the ‘nothingness’ under discussion. [AO2 for observing how form shapes meaning].

• Elsewhere in the play: The idea that the witches are at odds with the natural order is encapsulated by the phrase ‘fair is foul and foul is fair,’ which the witches speak in the play’s opening scene, and which rhetorically conjures a universe in which the natural order has been inverted, and good has become bad and vice versa. The structural choice of placing this at the very end of Act 1, Scene 1, allows it to function almost as an epigraph, delineating how the supernatural will make itself felt throughout the play.7 [AO2 for observing how structure shapes meaning].

Theme/Paragraph Four: Shakespeare portrays the witches, and their supernatural predictions, as a force that inspires action in other characters and drives the narrative.

• By making their predictions that Macbeth shall be King (‘Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter’), the witches inspire Macbeth to follow down the path to murdering Duncan; indeed, that he is thinking along those lines is already evident in this passage: ‘whose murder yet is but fantastical.’ [AO1 for advancing the argument with a judiciously selected quote].

• Elsewhere in the play: Later in the play, the words of the witches’ equivocating apparition – that ‘Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until / Great Birnam wood [shall come] to high Dunsinane hill’ – again galvanises Macbeth down a certain course of action: namely, his hubristic last stand at his castle at Dunsinane Hill.

Conclusion

I have covered all the themes I was hoping to in the paragraphs above. As a result, I will first make reference to another Shakespeare play in a bid to mop up any remaining AO3 marks going spare. Then, in a final AO1-scoring flourish, I will wrap things up with a brief parting comment that captures the essay’s central argument. 

“If, in Hamlet’s words, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio / than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ the play Macbeth is a deep-dive into such ‘things.’8 However, whereas the supernatural in Hamlet is shot-through with masculinity (the ghost is Hamlet’s father), the fact the central supernatural entities in Macbeth are female opens up themes regarding transgressive sexuality. There is also, arguably, a greater deal of subtlety in Macbeth, populated as it is with spectral presences like Act 5’s ‘Seyton’ – perhaps just a servant, perhaps a symbol of the ‘supernatural soliciting[‘s]’ ubiquity.”9

Footnotes

1 To be ambivalent is to have mixed feelings about something or someone.

2 Faust is an individual from German myth who, in exchange for magical abilities, agrees to hand over his soul to the devil. As a result, the word “Faustian” is now used to describe someone engaged in a sordid exchange in which they compromise themselves morally.

3 The word “Freudian” refers to the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939). His works explore the hidden sexual motivations that drive human beings. When we are doing a Freudian reading of a text, we are looking for the hidden sexual imagery – imagery that perhaps even the author themselves had not realised had possessed sexual undertones.

4 I suspect you are asking: what are inverted spondaic feet? Let me explain from the top. 

Shakespeare’s plays are almost entirely written in iambic pentameter. An iamb is a metrical foot in which the emphasis is on the second syllable, and tends to sound more like natural speech. A pentameter is when there are five metrical feet in a line.

It is often easiest to illustrate with an example. If we take the fifth line of Macbeth’s speech, and use bold font to represent the stressed syllables, plus a vertical bar to indicate the end of each metrical foot, it will look like this: ‘Cannot | be ill, | cannot | be good: | if ill.’ Since there are five metrical feet here, all iambic, it is rendered in iambic pentameter. 

A trochee, on the other hand, is a metrical foot in which the emphasis is on the first syllable, and tends to sound more unnatural. To illustrate, let us look at the sixth line from this extract, and mark out the stresses on syllables: ‘Why hath | it giv | en me | earnest | of succ | ess.’ As you can see, while the first three feet are iambs, the fourth is in fact a trochee. Since Shakespeare does not usually use trochees, we would call this an inverted trochaic foot: he appears to be inverting how he usually does things. 

But that’s not the only odd thing in this line. You’ll notice that the fifth foot has no stress on either syllable. This is known as a pyrrhic foot. And then there’s that extra stressed syllable at the end. This is known as a stressed hyperbeat or a masculine ending. (If it had been an unstressed syllable, it would have been an unstressed hyperbeat or a feminine ending).

So, finally, what is a spondee? This is when both syllables in a metrical foot are stressed. To illustrate, let’s look at the tenth line in this extract: ‘And make | my seat | ed heart | knock at | my ribs.’ As you can see, the second, fourth and fifth feet are all spondees. As a result, we describe them as inverted spondaic feet.

5 I have chosen to use the phrase Jacobean audience – as opposed to Elizabethan audience – because Macbeth was first performed in 1606, at which point King James I had replaced Elizabeth I on the throne (Elizabeth died in 1603).

6 Litotes is a rhetorical device in which the speaker is deliberately understating something. To illustrate, it’s like when someone says “hey, this day isn’t going too badly” as a way of saying: “this day is amazing!”

7 An epigraph is a short quote at the beginning of a work of literature that hints at the themes and concepts that will be discussed.

8 Horatio is Hamlet’s close friend in Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, Hamlet.

9 If something is ubiquitous, it means it is everywhere. You could say, for instance, that Scotland feels ubiquitous in this play.

Contents:

Essay Plan One: Write about how Shakespeare portrays the supernatural. 

Essay Plan Two: Discuss the extent to which Shakespeare portrays Lady Macbeth as a strong character.

Essay Plan Three: How does Shakespeare present temptation in the play?

Essay Plan Four: How does Shakespeare use humour in Macbeth?

Essay Plan Five: Discuss the extent to which Banquo is presented as a heroic character.

Essay Plan Six: Discuss how far you think Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a leader.

Essay Plan Seven: How does Shakespeare present Lady Macbeth as a woman who is losing control.

Product ISBN: 978-1-9163735-1-8

Published: March 2020

Recommended Retail Price: £9.99

Further customer reviews

Teaching the subject, it can be difficult to find 'model essays' without having to write several yourself. This guide has several model examples of a very high standard, clearly sign posted so the student cam see where and how they have gained the marks.

This is a fantastic guide for your top set, high ability students.

I brought this book as my students are studying Macbeth, it contains a selection of example essays on different topics. We are going through each essay and exploring the concepts and themes that are presented. It is helping them in numerous ways, as well as learning new techniques that we haven't yet covered, they are learning new ways of writing out ideas.

The example essays help them to see how an essay can come together and meet the marking criteria. It is also giving them lots of ideas on how to bring context into their own essays. A very helpful book that can be used in different ways. I recommend this for tutors, parents and self motivated students. It is great as an active learning/ study tool and it is also to read for recap and revision.

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