Act 2 — Macbeth — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Act 2
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The dagger soliloquy, Duncan's murder, the Porter, the discovery and the flight of Malcolm and Donalbain.
Key quotations: 'Is this a dagger which I see before me', 'I go, and it is done', 'Macbeth does murder sleep', 'Infirm of purpose!', 'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?', 'A little water clears us of this deed', 'an equivocator', 'Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope / The Lord's anointed temple', 'There's daggers in men's smiles', 'Even like the deed that's done'.
Form: the dagger soliloquy, the short shared lines after the murder, and the Porter's prose.
Edexcel's Shakespeare question has two parts: part (a) on the printed extract marks only language, form and structure (AO2), so context earns nothing there; part (b) on the play elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1, 15 marks) and context (AO3, 5 marks), not language analysis. Say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
