Duncan and Malcolm — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Duncan and Malcolm
Characters
What you need to know
How Shakespeare presents Duncan and Malcolm, and how the character develops across the text: good kingship, and its restoration at the end.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'O valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!', 'There's no art / To find the mind's construction in the face', 'He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust', 'This castle hath a pleasant seat', 'his virtues / Will plead like angels', 'the king-becoming graces', 'Bleed, bleed, poor country!', 'this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen'.
Context: the divine right of kings, Edward the Confessor's healing touch, and Malcolm's test of Macduff.
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.
