Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 5 and answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from Macbeth. Lady Macbeth
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. 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!'
Starting with this extract, how does Shakespeare present Macbeth as a dangerous character?
Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a dangerous character in this extract
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a dangerous character in the play as a whole
[30 marks] [AO4 4 marks]