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Who is presented as a model of good kingship in the play?

Macbeth - Themes

This GCSE English Literature quiz explores the key themes in Macbeth, from ambition and power to guilt, the supernatural and fate, helping you revise ideas for exam essays.

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Fascinating Fact:

The supernatural influences events through the Witches and visions, but it also reflects Macbeth’s own desires and fears, blurring outer forces with inner corruption.

In GCSE English Literature, you study how themes such as ambition, power, guilt and the supernatural run through Macbeth. You need to link these ideas to quotations, character and context.

Key Terms

Theme: A central idea that runs through a text, such as ambition, guilt or the supernatural in Macbeth.
Ambition: A strong desire for power, success or status. In the play it drives Macbeth and Lady Macbeth towards violent actions.
Supernatural: Forces or events beyond the natural world, including witches, prophecies, ghosts and disturbing visions.

Frequently Asked Questions (click to see answers)

What are the main themes in Macbeth for GCSE?

Key themes in Macbeth include ambition, power, guilt, kingship, fate versus free will, the supernatural and appearance versus reality. GCSE answers usually focus on how these ideas develop across the play.

How do I write about themes in a Macbeth GCSE essay?

Choose one clear theme, select a short quotation, then explain how language, character and context express that idea. Use a point, evidence, explanation structure and link back to the essay question.

Why is ambition such an important theme in Macbeth?

Ambition is crucial because it turns Macbeth from a respected warrior into a tyrant. His and Lady Macbeth’s desire for power leads to murder, guilt, mental collapse and the destruction of their relationship.

Try These Related Quizzes

1 .

Of what is Macbeth as guilty as the previous Thane of Cawdor?

Treason

Regicide (murder of a king)

Cowardice

The practice of magic

The Thane of Cawdor fights alongside the invading Sweno, King of Norway, an act of treason against his own king. By plotting to murder Duncan, the new Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth, is also guilty of treason

2 .

Macbeth is introduced to the audience as a valiant warrior, for which Duncan rewards him with the title, Thane of Cawdor. Which of the following responses to this honour does Macbeth share with his Lady?

They both receive the news with indifference

They both respond to the news with disappointment

They both respond to the news with ambition and a hunger for more power

All of the above

Macbeth refers to the honour shown to him by the King as one of the "preludes to the swelling act / Of the imperial theme". He looks forward already to what he understands as the witches' promise to him. Lady Macbeth responds to his letter with determination to encourage him to grasp the crown

3 .

Which of the following quotations does NOT imply that women are less violent, or valiant, than men?

"Unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full / Of direst cruelty"

"Bring forth men-children only; / For thy undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males"

"Had he not resembled / My father as he slept, I had done't"

"I have given suck, and know / How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me"

Lady Macbeth is determined to show herself to be unlike other women. The female sex is associated with nurture, rather than with death, so she asks to be "unsexed". Macbeth praises her as unlike other women and more fit to bear sons than daughters. Her inability to kill Duncan is due not to her gender, but to the similarity between patricide (killing one's father) and regicide (killing one's king)

4 .

How do the witches' prophecies affect the outcome of events in the play?

The witches' prophecies cause all of the events in the play without any help from human action

The witches' prophecies do not change any of the events of the play, all of which would certainly have come about through Macbeth's own action

The witches' prophecies both recognise and feed Macbeth's existing characteristics, including superstition, violence and ambition

The witches' prophecies are irrelevant to the outcome of events in the play

When one of the witches remarks "Something wicked this way comes", she recognises the evil in Macbeth's character. Macbeth and his Lady are ambitious and happy to use betrayal and violence to achieve their goals, yet the prophecies also propel their actions

5 .

Besides Duncan, who is presented as a model of good kingship in the play?

Sweno

Macbeth

James I

Edward the Confessor

Edward, King of England (and later known as the Confessor), possesses powers given him by God as a sign that he is the rightful king. He heals people through touch; Malcolm holds idealised views of kingship, referring to Edward as "full of grace" and describing his throne as one about which "sundry blessings hang". Macbeth, by contrast, is a tyrant who uses power for his own purposes

6 .

The witches take credit for....

Killing sheep

Causing storms

Causing a shipwreck

All of the above

The witch who wishes to punish a woman through cursing her husband's voyage to Aleppo can only cause tempests and acknowledges the limits to her power by stating that "his bark cannot be lost". Supernatural powers are shown to be limited in the play

7 .

Macduff's wife compares herself to which of the following?

A wren

An owl

A monkey

A ghost

Macduff's wife is "natural" in wanting to protect her children as the powerless wren defends her nest from the owl. She thus presents a contrast to the "unnatural" Lady Macbeth, who boasts that she would smash her child's skull if she had vowed to do so and who asks metaphorically that she might produce poison rather than milk

8 .

Macbeth begins and ends in war. In Act One, Scene One, the witches discuss the events of the battlefield and in Act Five, Scene Nine, Malcolm is presented with Macbeth's head. Which of the following lines from his final monologue does NOT refer to the violent events of the play?

"Calling home our exiled friends abroad / That fled the snares of watchful tyranny"

"This dead butcher and his fiend-like queen"

"By self and violent hands / Took off her life"

"This, and what needful else, / That calls upon us, by the grace of grace, / We will perform in measure, time and place"

The play ends with Malcolm promising wise rule in place of the tyranny and murder of Macbeth, whose violence is shown in his own actions and in those of his queen

9 .

Which of the following is correct?

Lady Macbeth feels guilt about the murders from which she benefits although she does not believe anyone can stand in judgement over her

Macbeth fears being judged for his treasonous actions by his peers

By fleeing, Malcolm and Donalbain show that they feel guilty for their father's murder

Banquo's death is a judgement for his part in not exposing Macbeth's treason

The play distinguishes between guilt and judgement. Lady Macbeth suffers psychologically from her guilt even while believing that as Queen she is safe from human judgement. Other characters wrongly attribute guilt to the sons of the king, judging their flight as an admission of guilt. Do you think Macbeth is judged by the end of the play? Who judges him?

10 .

"Away and mock the time with fairest show: / False face must hide what false heart doth know." What is meant by "false" in these lines?

Untrustworthy

Different in reality from what ought to be true

Different in appearance from reality

All of the above

The heart and the face tell different stories: the "false" heart betrays the one to whom it should be loyal and the "false" face shows love and friendship rather than the violent and murderous intentions of the heart

You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Themes

Author: Sheri Smith (PhD English Literature, English Teacher & Quiz Writer)