How Shakespeare explores ambition, from Macbeth's first thoughts of murder to its consequences for him and Lady Macbeth across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'Stars, hide your fires', 'Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on the other', 'Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd', 'Restrain in me the cursed thoughts', 'May they not be my oracles as well', 'I am in blood / Stepp'd in so far', 'Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell', 'Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow', 'Lay on, Macduff'.
Banquo as a contrast to Macbeth, ambition as pride (Lucifer's fall and the Great Chain of Being), and the broken-off line 'And falls on the other'.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
