1. Macbeth and McTavish
Lesson 5

2. School reports on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
– Macbeth and McTavish
School reports on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
Read the school reports on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth on page 17 of the Student’s Book.
Talk about the attitude the report writer seems to have towards one of the pupils – either Hamish Macbeth or Ethel McTavish.
Look at what the teacher writes and how he expresses himself. What does this show about how he feels about the student?
Lesson 5

3. Know how language presents meaning
– Macbeth and McTavish
Learning objective
Know how language presents meaning
Learning outcome
Students annotate part of Macbeth and write a paragraph summarising their findings.
A mastery ladder
Objective
Learning
Mastering
Expanding
Reading:
Know how language presents meaning
Make some relevant comments about language and structure
Identify the effect on the reader and explain how this effect is achieved
Analyse and evaluate relevant aspects of language, grammar and structure
Lesson 5

4. I have given suck, and know
– Macbeth and McTavish
LADY MACBETH
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep— Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey
Soundly invite him—his two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
What cannot you and I perform upon
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
Of our great quell?
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
When we have mark’d with blood those sleepy two
Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
That they have done’t?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,
As we shall make our griefs and clamour roar
Upon his death?
I am settled, and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Lesson 5

5. LADY MACBETH I have given suck, and know
– Macbeth and McTavish
LADY MACBETH
I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
Lesson 5

6. What are Lady Macbeth’s feelings and how does she convey them?
– Macbeth and McTavish
What are Lady Macbeth’s feelings and how does she convey them?
Lady Macbeth describes her actions with words that are very tough, hard and to the point. For example, she uses ‘given suck’ rather than ‘fed a baby’. Even though she says she felt ‘love’ for her baby, all the words she uses about the baby are not loving. Instead they are brutal, both in meaning and sound: ‘pluck’d’, ‘dash’d’.
Lesson 5