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AQA's GCSE English Literature exam gives you a printed extract and asks you to analyse it in relation to the whole play. This lesson examines four frequently tested passages and provides model PEE/PEAL paragraphs for each.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Paper | Paper 1, Section B: Shakespeare |
| Time | Approximately 50–55 minutes (out of 1 hour 45 total) |
| Marks | 30 marks + 4 SPaG marks = 34 marks total |
| Format | Extract printed on the paper + a question |
| Requirement | Analyse the extract AND refer to the play as a whole |
Examiner's tip: You must cover BOTH the extract and the wider play. A common mistake is spending too much time on the extract and neglecting the wider text (or vice versa). Aim for roughly 60% extract, 40% wider play.
"The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief."
| Feature | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Imperative verbs | "Come", "unsex", "fill", "make", "stop" | She commands the spirits — shows determination and control |
| Body imagery | "crown to the toe", "blood", "breasts", "milk" | She wants her entire physical being transformed |
| Inversion of nature | "take my milk for gall" | Nurturing milk replaced by bitter poison — rejects femininity and motherhood |
| Supernatural invocation | "you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts" | She actively calls on evil — aligning herself with the Witches |
Point: Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a character who deliberately rejects her femininity in pursuit of power.
Evidence: In her "unsex me" soliloquy, Lady Macbeth commands the spirits to "Come to my woman's breasts, / And take my milk for gall."
Analysis: The imperative "Come" demonstrates Lady Macbeth's commanding tone — she does not ask but demands, reflecting her determination and perceived control over supernatural forces. The image of replacing nurturing "milk" with poisonous "gall" is deeply transgressive: milk symbolises motherhood, compassion, and femininity — the very qualities Jacobean society expected of women. By requesting this transformation, Lady Macbeth is rejecting the fundamental attributes of her gender, aligning herself instead with the Witches' world of inversion where "fair is foul." The audience would have found this profoundly disturbing — a woman asking to be "unsexed" was essentially asking to become unnatural, to break from her divinely ordained role in the Great Chain of Being.
Link: However, Shakespeare ultimately shows that this suppression of nature is unsustainable. By Act 5, Lady Macbeth's guilt — the very "compunctious visitings of nature" she tried to "stop up" — has overwhelmed her, manifesting in sleepwalking and obsessive handwashing. This structural reversal suggests that Shakespeare is warning his audience that attempts to suppress natural conscience will inevitably fail.
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly. If the assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the inventor."
| Feature | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Conditional language | "If it were done", "Could", "Might" | Shows uncertainty and hesitation |
| Euphemism | "it", "the assassination", "this blow" | He cannot bring himself to say "murder" |
| Alliteration | "surcease success" | The sibilance sounds snake-like — sinister |
| Metaphor | "trammel up the consequence" | Like catching fish in a net — trying to contain the uncontainable |
Point: Shakespeare presents Macbeth as deeply conflicted about the murder, revealing his moral awareness through convoluted, evasive language.
Evidence: Macbeth opens his soliloquy with "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly."
Analysis: The triple repetition of "done" within a single line creates a sense of tortured, circular reasoning — Macbeth is trapped in his own logic, unable to move forward or retreat. The subjunctive "If" that opens the speech signals uncertainty: this is a hypothetical, not a decision. Crucially, Macbeth never uses the word "murder" — instead, he employs euphemisms such as "it", "the assassination", and "this blow." This linguistic evasion reveals that while Macbeth's ambition draws him towards the act, his conscience prevents him from naming it directly. The Jacobean audience would recognise this as a man in a state of spiritual crisis — aware of the magnitude of the sin he contemplates but unable to resist the pull of his "vaulting ambition."
Link: This soliloquy is structurally significant because it is the last moment where Macbeth genuinely debates whether to commit the murder. After Lady Macbeth's intervention later in the scene, he resolves to act. The moral clarity he shows here — "we still have judgement here, that we but teach / Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return / To plague the inventor" — becomes a prophecy of his own fate: the "bloody instructions" he teaches will indeed return to destroy him.
"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
| Feature | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Rhetorical questions | "Is this a dagger?", "Art thou not?" | Shows confusion — he cannot trust his senses |
| Address to the dagger | "Come, let me clutch thee" | He speaks to it as if it were real — blurring reality and hallucination |
| Oxymoron | "fatal vision" | Combines death ("fatal") with sight ("vision") — what he sees will kill |
| Metaphor | "a dagger of the mind" | He wonders if it is a product of his guilty imagination |
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