Assignment: Macbeth Act 2 Thesis Development Exercise
1. Love and Loyalty
| 1.4.15-57 | 1.6.1-end | 2.3.89-111 |
2. Ambition and Rebellion
| 1.2.9-33 | 1.4.43-53 | 1.5.1-26 | 1.7.1-81 | 2.21-32 |
3. The appearance of virtue (in contrast to genuine virtue)
| 1.3.109-143 | 1.4.1-14 | 1.5.56-69 | 1.6.1-10 | 1.7.80-83 | 2.3.113-139 |
4. Things against nature/The "Unnatural"
| 1.3.128-143 | 1.5.11-35 | 2.3.45-60 | 2.4.1-41 |
Choose one of the four topics above and start with the passages listed along with your choice.
Consider what these passages have in common (or what’s significant about their differences).
Then go back through your own notes from reading the first two acts and determine whether there are additional passages that have relevance for your understanding of the chosen topic.
Once you've considered all the evidence, develop a working thesis about your topic that offers an argument about the language Shakespeare deploys in exploring significant concepts in the play. What can you observe about the language and literary devices in these passages? What images are conjured by them? What are the effects of those images on your understanding of characters and their motives? What do those words and images suggest about political power in the play or the conflicts Shakespeare's characters are involved in prior to the play's action?
Your working thesis should begin, “In the first two acts of Macbeth,” and should be followed by a claim or set of claims about language and style rather than a summary of the plot. As you practice drafting an observation-based claim, ask yourself whether or not your thesis tells your future reader simply what happens in the text, or illuminates something that isn’t readily available to anyone who knows the plot of the text. Aim for the latter.
Some examples of working theses about other/related topics:
In the first two acts of Macbeth, Shakespeare deploys metaphors associated with sports to establish the competitive nature of battle as well as the way warfare is entertaining to bystanders and people who experience it through reports.
In the first two acts of Macbeth, repeated references to stars draw on these bodies' association with nobility as well as fortune and light. These references offer a cohesive pattern of imagery that presents a stark contrast to imagery of darkness and blood that start to build towards the end of Act Two.
Your claims may not look like the two we've listed here, and that's fine. See what you can come up with as a form of practice towards writing analytical papers based on a close reading of a text.