Context — Macbeth — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Context
Introduction
What you need to know
The Jacobean context that shapes Macbeth: James I, the divine right of kings and the Great Chain of Being, the Gunpowder Plot,
James's interest in witchcraft (Daemonologie), and the play as a tragedy written for a Jacobean audience.
How to use this context in an answer about the play rather than as background.
Tragedy: a hero of noble birth brought down by a fatal flaw, the catharsis of fear and pity, and how Macbeth fits the pattern.
The North Berwick witch trials, where witches were accused of raising storms against James's ship.
Shakespeare's source, Holinshed's Chronicles, in which Banquo helps Macbeth kill Duncan, and James I's descent from Banquo.
Equivocation: Father Henry Garnet's trial after the Gunpowder Plot, and the Porter's 'equivocator'.
The natural order overturned after Duncan's murder: the omens of Act 2 Scene 4.
Edward the Confessor's healing touch in Act 4 Scene 3: the good king Macbeth is not.
OCR credits context only as the play shows it: the social, historical and cultural ideas at work in the play that bear on the question. General facts about Shakespeare's life, theatre or times earn nothing on their own.
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.
