“Woman is the ende of all mankinde” · Mon May 1, 20:06 by Eleri Straker
I’ve taught Macbeth for a long time, to a lot of students. In fact, it was the play that I studied myself for O level, so not only do I know the play fairly well, I like it too.
I enjoy teaching the Scottish play as it is always fun to see the usual reaction of most classes to the prospect of studying the Bard (“Bleah…Shakespeare’s boring Miss.”) change once they get into it.
I’ve yet to find a class that isn’t fascinated by the blood, the violence, the black magic, the sex…
Having said that, I have actually been witness to Macbeth dying in the classroom. I didn’t think such a thing was possible, but some years ago, I watched it happen. The teacher, young and a bit nervous, insisted on the kids reading the roles (fine) but without modelling them first, so they had no idea how the words should sound, or what they were about. The class had no idea about the point of the play and she refused to go into detail about the blood, the violence, the black magic etc. It was boring. It was dead writing on the page. I love the play and even I was bored!
The first thing that I do, when I teach this play, is to have a discussion about witchcraft, then go on about witchfinders and magic and whether it’s possible to foresee the future etc. I make sure that the class is fired up before we start to read. Then, when the reading is in progress, I emphasise the goriness of some of the scenes – it’s great fun watching the boys go pale when I explain what cleaving someone “from the nave to the chaps” means!
But the real fun starts when Lady Macbeth appears. Every student is fascinated by her and I’m always fascinated by the reaction of both sexes to her. The usual initial reaction to her is disgust, or revulsion. Then, as the class understands more of the subtle nuances of Shakespeare’s language, there is a change. They begin to see more than merely the “fiend-like queen”. Someone invariably notices that Lady M has to summon the powers of darkness to enable her to commit evil acts. Then someone points out (usually me!) that Macbeth, this great warrior chap, must be a real wimp to allow a woman to persuade him…after all, doesn’t he have any will power at all? This all leads to very vocal ‘discussions’ about who is actually responsible for the tragedy. Someone always declares that it’s the woman’s fault, to which someone always points out that she actually didn’t kill anyone… At this point it tends to get very noisy. And a lot of fun. But every year the boys claim it’s her fault and the girls claim it’s his…
What is interesting is the fact that even in the twenty first century, many boys still seem to believe that the woman is the cause of all evil. Even after women’s lib and equal rights and all that stuff, it seems that we are still seen to be the troublemakers! It’s fascinating to watch each year group go through the same process of discussion and analysis. It’s wonderful to see the words and ideas of a long-dead Englishman fire the imagination of yet another generation of students. And it’s brilliant to watch young minds open as they realise that there is no right answer and that the fun is finding that out!
You can’t teach Shakespeare in a vacuum. If students are to get any pleasure from the words of a guy who’s been dead for four hundred years, then it’s up to the teacher to make the words relevant to them. To make it live. Kids like gore and mystery and violence, why else would computer games be so popular? Macbeth fits the bill, or at least, can be made to fit if the effort is made by the teacher to do so. And if going down the magic route doesn’t work, then the woman being the cause of all the trouble certainly will…as the boys will say it and the girls will try to kill them for it!
