Hi there, welcome to today's lesson, Macbeth's Internal Conflict.

My name is Mr. Barnsley, and it's really great to have you joining me today for today's lesson.

So, by the end of today's lesson, you will have created a detailed essay plan about how Macbeth is a conflicted character.

Here are four keywords that you should expect to encounter in today's lesson.

They are, tormented, deteriorating, estranged, and paradoxical.

The definitions for each of these four words are about to appear on screen.

Do read them very carefully, pausing the video if you need to, to make sure you understand what each of them mean, so they don't confuse you when they come up later in today's lesson.

There are two learning cycle in today's lesson, Macbeth's Internal Conflict.

The first one is entitled, "Macbeth: A Man at War." And in the second learning cycle, we will build on the discussions that we have in the first learning cycle to plan a complete response.

So let's get started with "Macbeth: A Man at War." So, Act three is a really important act, as the audience sees a very significant shift in Macbeth's behaviour, and we see a shift, a difference with his relationship with his wife.

So, can you remind yourself what happens in Act three, Scene two? You're gonna pause the video and have a discussion, or if you're working by yourself, you can just make a few notes.

What happens in Act three, Scene two? What does the audience learn about Macbeth as a character? And what does the audience learn about the Macbeth's relationship with each other? So Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Pause the video, have a discussion, and press play when you are ready to continue.

I heard some great recapping going on there, well done.

Before we dive in and remind ourselves, I want us to think about another scene in this act, Act three, Scene four.

So same thing here, please discuss, what happens in the scene? What does the audience learn about Macbeth? And what does the audience learn about the relationship between the Macbeth's? Okay, so pause the video.

Same thing, Act three, Scene four this time, what can you remember? Press play when you are ready to continue.

Lots of great recapping going on there, well done.

Right, let's just double check we're all on the same page and we all have a good understanding of what happens in these two scenes.

So, starting with Act three, Scene two.

I want to pull out some of the responses that I heard during your discussion.

Well, in this scene, Macbeth contemplates Banquo's murder.

He's tormented by guilt and fear and he keeps, and he describes his mind as being full of scorpion.

However, he keeps his murderous secret, his plan to kill his ally, from his wife.

And this makes his inner, this deepens his inner conflict.

He's really wrestling between his ambition, his desire to protect his crown, and protect the throne, and his conscience committing terrible crimes and betraying an ally.

And now Act three, Scene four.

This is the scene with Banquo's ghost, and it really reveals Macbeth's inner conflict 'cause he has another hallucination here.

We see his wife's dismay.

Lady Macbeth is disgusted, appalled by his behaviour, and this really underlines the deteriorating, their deteriorating relationship.

Their relationship is getting worse and worse.

It highlights their growing estrangement, they are growing apart from each other.

And this is because of Macbeth's spiralling guilt and paranoia.

Well done if you remembered either of these things about Scene two or Scene four in Act three, well done.

Now, I want us to think about this phrase, "A man at war with himself." I think Macbeth can be described as a man at war with himself, but what might this mean? Pause the video, have a discussion, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Some really lovely ideas there.

I just wanted to spotlight a couple of things we heard.

Lots of you talked about how Macbeth is a man at war throughout the play.

He's at war with, certainly, kind of Malcolm and McDuff towards the end of the play.

But actually one of the main wars or the main battles we see him face is the one against himself.

His guilt, his conscience, the things that he wants to do, but the terrible crimes he has to commit to get the things that he wants.

We see that Macbeth is a very conflicted man.

Okay, so let's build on this discussion then.

In Act three, Macbeth is presented as a man who is "solely at war with himself." To what extent do you agree? I want you to use some of the quotations below to support your argument in your discussion.

So from Act three, Scene two, he says, "We have scorched the snake not killed it." He says, "Affliction of these terrible dreams." We know he's been having nightmares.

He says his mind is "O' full of scorpions is my mind." And he tells his wife, he tells Lady Macbeth to "Be innocent of the knowledge." The knowledge that he is planning to kill Banquo.

In Act three, Scene four, some interesting quotes we can focus in on.

"Thou cannot say I did it.

Never shake thy gory locks at me!" This is when he's seen the ghost of Banquo and he's hallucinating.

Lady Macbeth questions whether he's a man in this moment, he says, "Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that which might appal the devil." And he says to his wife, "You lack the season of all natures, sleep." Do these quotations show that Macbeth is a man who is solely at war with himself? Or do they suggest something else? Pause the video.

Give yourself a bit of time to have this discussion and press play when you are ready to continue.

Some great discussions there.

I could see people going back and forth arguing more than one side.

Well done to everyone who said, look, Macbeth's clearly a man at war himself.

There's lots of things to say.

He's conflicted, there's lots of things that suggest his inner guilt, whether they are his terrible dreams, the fact that his mind is racing, full of scorpions, poisonous creatures.

The fact that he's hallucinating seeing Banquo, it kind of signs of this guilt.

So lots of justification for showing that Macbeth is a man at war with himself.

But some of you I heard questioning whether that was the only battle he was having here.

Some of you saying actually there seems to be suggestion that he's also at war with his wife.

He's becoming more and more estranged, more and more separated from her.

He's trying to take control back from Lady Macbeth Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth, very controlling in the beginning of the play, he's trying to take some of that control back.

And when she questions his masculinity in this scene, he says, yes, I am a man and I'm a very bold one.

So well done if you said, yes, Macbeth is a man at war, but maybe he's not only at war with himself.

Check for understanding now.

Which of the following quotations does not illustrate Macbeth's own internal conflict? So, four quotations here.

One of these is not just focusing on Macbeth's conflict with himself.

So, is it, A, "Affliction of these terrible dreams." B, "O' full of scorpions is my mind." C, "Never shake thy gory locks at me." D, "That dare look on that which might appal the devil." Pause the video, make your selection, and press play when you are ready for the answer.

Well done if you identified D.

D there, he's actually speaking to Lady Macbeth, is showing this friction and conflict between him and his wife.

All the others are signs of Macbeth's own internal guilt and is causing him to feel very conflicted.

Okay, it is now time for us to look at a model answer.

As we look at a model answer, I want you to think about, does this pupil believe Macbeth is solely at war with himself? And, how does this pupil support their argument? Okay, if you want to read through this by yourself, you can pause the video now.

Otherwise I'm gonna read it to you and you can follow along.

Arguably, Macbeth is as much at war with Lady Macbeth as he is with himself.

In an angry tone, Lady Macbeth attacks her husband, her king's masculinity.

"Are you a man?" The noun man in her probing rhetorical question is of huge significance.

In both mediaeval Scotland and Jacobean society, people had very fixed views on masculinity.

Both spheres were heavily influenced by the story of Adam and Eve, and thought of men as the naturally superior sex.

Views on women were paradoxical.

They were seen as unintelligent, weak, and vulnerable on the one hand, and evil deceptive and manipulative on the other.

It is thus easy to see why Macbeth does not like being implicitly called a woman by his own wife.

Murdering someone to gain or maintain power was only considered acceptable in combat, Macbeth knows this.

He immediately retaliates by contradicting society's expectations of a man, he declares, who dares do more than what would horrify the devil is non.

Clearly, our tragic hero is struggling to overcome his conflict with his own sense of identity, and his wife is a key catalyst in this relentless war.

This is also very evident earlier in the play Act one, Scene seven, where Lady Macbeth again uses the rhetorical questions to ignite her husband's fatal flaw.

"Live a coward in thine own esteem?" "Like the poor cat i' the adage?" The noun coward and the simile through which she accuses him of being trapped like a cat, an animal with feminine connotations, suggest her tone is scathing.

Some may say it is not surprising that Macbeth feels the need to prove himself to Lady Macbeth.

By making the decision to kill King Duncan, Macbeth accepts his wife's notion of what it is to be a man and he rejects social propriety.

But as we can see from his language and behaviour in Act three, Scene four, this is a cause of extreme inner conflict that never rests.

The motif of masculinity is symbolic of this.

Pause the video, have a discussion.

Does the pupil believe Macbeth is solely at war with himself? And how does the pupil support their argument? Press play when you are ready to continue.

Really detailed discussions there.

Yes, well done.

Of course, the pupil here is arguing that he is just as much at war with his wife as he is with himself, but ties those two ideas together and actually starts to suggest that Lady Macbeth might be equally as responsible for Macbeth's internal conflict as Macbeth is.

And I really liked how not only did this pupil use evidence from Act three, as we've been looking at, but they also referred back, they made links back to Act one, Scene seven, where we saw Lady Macbeth emasculating her husband.

Well done if you picked any of those things out.

Time for another check for understanding here.

This pupil believes Macbeth is solely a man at war with himself.

True or false? Pause the video, select your answer, and then press play when you are ready to continue.

Well done, of course that was false.

Well done if you got that right.

Let's justify our decision then.

Is it that the pupil feels Macbeth is at war with a society which expects men to behave in a certain way? Or does the pupil believe Macbeth is at war with his wife, who purposefully exploits society's expectations of men? Select your response and press play when you are ready to continue.

Yes, well done if you selected B here.

A isn't wrong, per se, Macbeth, I do think is at war with a society that expects men to behave in a certain way.

But the pupil here is really arguing that Lady Macbeth exploits that, she takes advantage of the fact that she knows society expects men to behave in a certain way.

So well done if you selected B there.

Right, your first task of today's lesson.

I want you to reread the model answer and I want you to identify where it has done the following.

Where has it clearly expressed their argument? Where have they used quotation from Act three to support their argument? Where have they used quotation from the rest of the play to support their argument? And where have they used contextual information to enhance their argument? Pause the video, reread and annotate the model answer and press play when you are ready to continue.

Great job on the activity everybody.

Let's have a look at some of the things that you may have identified.

So, when you were looking for moments where the pupil really clearly expressed their argument, here are some of the things that you may have highlighted.

So, arguably Macbeth is a man as much at war with Lady Macbeth as he is with himself.

So, really clearly stating what the focus of this paragraph is gonna be about.

Clearly, our tragic hero is struggling to overcome his conflict with his own sense of identity, and his wife is a key catalyst in this relentless war.

So, really there, a really nice clear argument linking Lady Macbeth to being responsible for Macbeth's own internal conflict.

And by making the decision to kill King Duncan, Macbeth accepts his wife's notion of what it's to be a man.

So, they're actually making an argument that by Macbeth killing King Duncan, he's actually, he's falling for his wife's trap of, and she's setting out what it means to be a man.

Using quotation from Act three to support their argument.

Well, well done.

They use the quotation, "Are you a man?" They also made a lot of reference to things that happen in Act three.

So remember, we can refer to plot points, we don't always have to use quotations, great if we can, but it's also important that we mention what happens in Act three and they do this throughout.

Also, using a quotation for the rest of the play.

So you can see that on the screen, the quotation from Act one, Scene seven, that Lady Macbeth says.

And finally using contextual information to enhance their argument, well they talk about the influence of the biblical story of Adam and Eve, which kind of presents men as a, or interpretations of that story have been used to present men as naturally superior.

This idea that views on women were paradoxical, women were both viewed as kind of supposedly the weaker sex, but could also be very manipulative.

And there was also that idea of what it meant to be a man.

And actually there were certain ways that people should have gained power and they should do that nobly, and we know that Macbeth doesn't do it that way.

Well done if you selected any of those things, I'm sure you might have selected some different things as well.

Okay, it's time to move on to our second learning cycle, and now we're gonna start using all the ideas that we've just discussed and start planning a complete response.

So, we are gonna look at this question here.

Starting with Act three, how has Shakespeare presented Macbeth as a conflicted character? So, let's break this question down a little bit and try and work out exactly what it is that we should be saying in our response.

So, starting with Act three, it's directing us and saying we should, in our response, definitely be talking about some moments from Act three, whether that is Macbeth plotting the murder of Banquo or his guilt at the banquet scene.

We should definitely be including lots of references to Act three.

But the fact that starting with Act three, implies that of course we have to be talking about the rest of the play as well.

So yes, we will focus our response on Act three, but we'll be making links to different scenes before and after as well to develop our arguments.

How has Shakespeare, so the how is a reminder that we need to talk about language, we need to talk about form and structure, but also it's really, really important that we focus on Shakespeare's purpose.

What is his message? What is he trying to teach the audience? Is there a moral to this story? We've been given a character, in this case, Macbeth, to focus on.

So, we do need to make sure our response really does focus on Macbeth.

But whenever we talk about any character, we should always be discussing their relationship with other characters.

In particular, we can see here that making links to Lady Macbeth could be really, really useful in fleshing out our argument.

And the key word here is conflicted, conflicted character.

So, I want us to think about what conflict does Macbeth go through? Well, we know he has an internal conflict.

We know he has a conflict with his wife.

We also know he has a conflict with society.

So, there's lots of different conflicts we can talk about throughout the course of our response.

Now, before we start planning our essay, I want us to think a little bit more about thesis statements and topic sentences 'cause these are two things that are really, really useful in helping us and supporting us with our planning.

Let's remind ourselves what they mean.

So, a thesis statement is our overarching argument.

It's the argument that we are gonna be covering throughout our essay.

And the fact that we're covering it throughout our essay means it has to be fairly general.

We don't want to be too specific 'cause otherwise it might mean we don't have enough things to say in our essay.

At the same time, we don't want to be too general because we can't talk about everything, but it needs to be general enough that we're gonna have plenty of things to say.

And then, underneath our thesis statement or our thesis statement will be supported by topic sentences.

The topic sentences are what go at the beginning of each of our paragraphs, and they outline what we are gonna be talking about in each of our paragraphs.

Now, these can be a lot more specific, they can be a lot more focused, okay? Because you are only creating a little argument for that one individual paragraph, and therefore we can be more specific there because we can probably write a detailed paragraph about some really specific moments in Macbeth.

Now, I think you should be aiming for approximately three different topic sentences.

So, three different ideas that you might focus on over the course of your essay.

But the really important thing to remember here is each of these topic sentences need to support your thesis statement, all of them will help prove that your overarching argument is true.

Let's have a look at an example then of a thesis statement.

Arguably, in Act three and throughout the play as a whole, Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a character who is as much in conflict with himself as he is with other characters.

Thus, perhaps, Shakespeare uses Macbeth's internal turmoil as a warning against betrayal and disloyalty.

Let's have a look at success criteria then for writing a really good thesis.

So, first of all, it's gonna specifically mention any scenes or acts if we've been told we need to talk about them.

So, we were told that we need to start with Act three, so I need to specifically mention them in my thesis.

I'm also gonna acknowledge that I'm not just gonna focus on Act three, I'm gonna talk about the play as a whole, but I do need to mention that or I'm gonna try and mention that in my thesis.

It also really focuses on the writer's purpose and the message that they are trying to portray throughout their text.

So here, we know Shakespeare uses Macbeth's story, his journey, his turmoil, his conflict, as a warning against betraying or being disloyal to others, whether they are your friends and allies or whether they are your king.

It does have to have, include the keywords from the question.

So you can see I've got the words Macbeth and conflict here.

I've used the word turmoil, which means something very similar to conflict.

So, I'm not just overusing the keywords from the question, but it is important that I include them in my thesis.

And finally, you can see I'm using some tentative language in there.

Arguably, perhaps, I'm acknowledging here that this is not the only interpretation, some people may feel differently.

It's arguable that Macbeth is as much, is in as much conflict with himself as he is with other characters.

Some people might argue that he's only in conflict with himself.

Some people might argue he's only in conflict with others.

I'm gonna argue he's in conflict with both himself and others.

There are different things I can argue there, so I want to use that tentative vocabulary.

And again, I'm using the word perhaps there because I don't know for sure that that's what Shakespeare's purpose was, but that is my interpretation.

Okay, a check for understanding now, a gap fill.

I want you to pause the video, read this paragraph, and I would like you, using the words at the bottom I'd like you to fill them in, in the spaces, so you've got a complete paragraph.

Pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Okay, let's look and see if we've got the right answer.

A thesis statement is the overarching argument of your essay.

This should focus on the writer's purpose.

Your thesis statement should be supported by topic sentences.

Each topic sentence will have a more specific argument.

This might mean that your topic sentence will focus on specific scenes or chapters of a text.

Okay, now it's time to start planning a complete response.

This is a paragraph outline, we're gonna use the paragraph outline to help planning.

It's not the only way you can plan, but this is a way that we are gonna practise using planning in today's lesson.

So, a reminder that we start with a thesis at the top of our plan.

This is our overarching argument for our response.

Then we're gonna outline topic sentences.

These are gonna be more specific arguments that are all going to support our thesis.

You should be aiming for two, three, maybe even four different topic sentences in your essay.

So, supporting detail, this is here where we make notes of the key language, form, structure or context that support our topic sentence.

So, what's the evidence we're gonna use to prove that our argument is true? Our summary sentence is our, we must summarise our argument at the end of a paragraph.

It will help with our cohesion with our argument, it'll help our cohesion between paragraphs.

And finally, we've always got to think about what our conclusion is gonna be.

What is the overarching summary of the writer's message? What do we think Shakespeare is trying to achieve through the character of Macbeth? Let's do a check for understanding.

What you're gonna do now is match a section of the single paragraph outline on the left to its function on the right.

Pause the video, give this activity a go, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Okay, let's check these answers.

So, a thesis statement should outline your overarching argument for the whole essay, keeping a sharp focus on the question and the author's intention.

A topic sentence should outline the main argument of your paragraph, including key vocabulary from the question.

A summary sentence should summarise your argument that you've made in your paragraph, drawing back to the author's purpose.

And a conclusion should summarise your overarching argument, expressing a clear thought on the writer's message.

Well done if you've got all of those correct.

Okay, over to you now, and you're gonna do some planning.

I would like you to complete the planning grid below for the following question.

Starting with Act three, how has Shakespeare presented Macbeth as a conflicted character? Pause the video, complete this activity, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Okay, well done.

I could see some really detailed plans there.

Great job.

You're gonna now use the coaching questions on the screen to assess, and if you need to, improve the quality of your plan.

So, check, do you have an interesting thesis, which focuses on Shakespeare's intention? Does one of your topic sentences indicate you are going to discuss the given act? So at least one of your topic sentences should be talking about Act three.

Do all of your topic sentences support your thesis? So, are they all building and supporting your argument? Do you have a range of supporting detail from a variety of scenes? Do you use context as part of your supporting detail? Do your summary sentences link back to the question? And is your conclusion focused on Shakespeare's message? Pause your video, and look over your plan and see if you've done all of these things.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, well done.

We had some fantastic discussions in today's lesson and that's built to a really good essay plan.

Fantastic job, everyone.

You should be really proud of yourselves.

On the screen right now, you can see a summary of everything that we have covered in today's lesson.

I'm really glad you joined me today, and I really hope to see you in some of our future lessons in this unit.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye.