Excerpt 1: Read the excerpt from act 1, scene 5 of The Tragedy of Macbeth. Lady Macbeth has just read Macbeth’s letter about the witches’ prophecy and his promotion to thane of Cawdor. [ Lady Macbeth: ] Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up the access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, "Hold, hold!” Excerpt 2: Read the excerpt from act 3, scene 2 of The Tragedy of Macbeth. Macbeth has killed Duncan, but he warns Lady Macbeth that they are still in danger. Macbeth: We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it: She’ll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth. But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead, Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, Than on the torture of the mind to lie In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave; After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing Can touch him further. How does Shakespeare most develop the universal themes "the relationship between violence and human nature” and "the consuming power of guilt” in these excerpts?
Answer
A
through the conflict between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
B
through each character’s appeal to the supernatural
C
through the comparison of Lady Macbeth’s resolve and Macbeth’s uncertainty
D
through the contrast between Macbeth’s disloyalty and Duncan’s trustworthiness
Explanation
Lady Macbeth calls on spirits to strip away her compassion so she can pursue violence without remorse. Later, Macbeth describes how fear and terrible dreams leave him in mental torment, even though Duncan rests peacefully in death. The contrast between Lady Macbeth’s determined rejection of conscience and Macbeth’s uncertainty and guilt most clearly develops both themes. Choice A is less precise because the excerpts emphasize their different responses to violence and guilt, not a direct conflict between them.
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