Hi Alisa - you can buy my Top Grade Macbeth Essay Guide, which contains 6 detailed, Grade 9 model essays on all the most commonly examined themes. It also includes detailed marking + feedback according to GCSE Assessment Objects - done by a PGCE qualified teacher. Check it out here: hyperbolit.com/buy/

Thanks for watching!

Thanks so much!

@@JenChan If u live in the UK rn its pretty late ngl but thnx for the heart

I should! What other themes would you like to see me cover? :)

@@JenChan maybe gender roles, appearance Vs reality, hubris idk anything that you think is important in Macbeth

@@zahraux05 I'll probably do one on reading Macbeth as a feministic play soon, so stay tuned!

@@JenChan great :)

Thanks so much, by the way. The video was really useful.

Hi Matthew - thanks for the question. Personally, I think Macbeth's curiosity is quite different from that of Banquo (if Banquo can even be understood as 'curious'). While the latter does ask many questions in their first encounter with the witches, he doesn't seem to actually care about the answers, because a) he's already skeptical of supernatural prophecies (" to win us to our harm,/The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/Win us with honest trifles, to betray's/In deepest consequence."), or b) willing to accept the fact that Macbeth "will be king". But if you're asking if Macbeth is spurred on primarily by his wife's attempts at emasculation, I suspect it's rather more than that (even though it is a factor). There's a raw compulsion at work which forces him to confirm his self-identity as a superior being.

@@matthewturner6593 glad to hear it!

@@JenChan Thanks for the answer - I never thought of it as a compulsion on the part of Macbeth.

Think of chiasmus as the umbrella term, and antimetabole as a more specific version of chiasmus. With antimetabole it's the inversion of words, whereas chiasmus can be inversion of ideas / structures as well.

Hmm... power at all cost?

Thanks for the suggestion - I'll definitely consider doing that on my blog in the future! Will link it to my videos if so.

That's an interesting angle, thanks. "Fear of honouring the dark forces the witches represent": so does that mean you think Macbeth is both afraid of and attracted to the witches' pull? I think that's true to a large extent. But one could also argue that his murder of Duncan is occasioned / triggered by a spark of ambition. The root cause of his tragedy, however, may not necessarily be all that related to ambition, yes.

@@JenChan If it was all about ambition, then it would finish at the end of Act 2, when he’s crowned King. That’s what he wants. What about the ‘to be safely thus’ thing though? That’s not ambition. That’s insecurity. Macbeth says he’ll never be as good a king as Duncan, so it’s not ambition that makes him kill his rivals. It’s fear. He’s afraid he can’t command their loyalty.

He is a puppet of the witches who are more important to him than most audiences/students think. He’s not attracted to these “imperfect speakers” but he is impressed by their prediction and fearful of their power so seeks both control of and honouring their prediction - he’s in the aristocracy anyway so his ambition is not that of a peasant - it looks like ambition but it is more following manifest destiny. More fear and arrogance than ambition.