Macbeth 4

Study Guide Questions for Act 3, Scenes 1-3

If you are looking for the beginning of the study for Shakespeare’s Macbeth then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Fate, Recklessness, Appearance vs. Reality, Light vs. Darkness

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What “fear” did Banquo express at the beginning of Act 3?

2. Whom did Macbeth fear?

3. What did Macbeth arrange to have done to take away his fear?

4. What reason did Macbeth give for not doing the deed himself?

5. What had been shaking Macbeth and his wife “nightly?”

6. Macbeth proclaimed “There’s comfort yet.” What comfort was he referring to?

7. How many murderers laid in wait for Banquo and his son?

8. To what degree was their ambush successful? 

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why would Banquo have been suspicious of Macbeth when others do not seem to be?

2. Why would Macbeth fear Banquo more than other men?

3. What did Macbeth mean by saying, “Come fate into the list, and champion me to th’ utterance?”

4. When talking to the murderers, Macbeth said, “Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept All by the name of dogs.” What was his point?

5. Why were the murderers willing to kill Banquo?

6. Lady Macbeth said, “‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” What did she mean by that?

7. What did Lady Macbeth mean by “Things without all remedy should be without regard?”

8. What both aided and also foiled the murderer’s attempt to kill Banquo and Fleance?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. One of the murderers told Macbeth, “I am one, my liege, Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world Have so incens’d, that I am reckless what I do to spite the world.” Do you think our virtues and vices are a product of forces beyond our control? To what extent do our past experiences form our character? To what extent do we have a choice in who we are? Are there any other factors that affect our ability to be virtuous?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Exodus 9 (for even greater context you could read chapters 7-14) and pay attention to the language about Pharaoh’s “heart.” What does this passage teach us about what the choice to walk in sin and vice does to us?