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GCSE Macbeth

@GCSE_Macbeth

26 Nov 20

The best value quote in A Christmas Carol is from Stave One:

Scrooge: "I can't afford to make idle people merry."

Let me break it down:

1/

"I can't afford"

Scrooge CAN, of course, afford to give a donation to charity. He learns later in the book that just a small amount of money can bring a huge amount of happiness.

But as someone who pursues the gain of money for its own sake...

2/

he never feels comfortable with the amount he has, and has lost a sense of what the value of his money is.

3/

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GCSE Macbeth

@GCSE_Macbeth

5 Nov 20

Good class chats about this bit of ACC Stave 3:

Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so.

I love the word HERESY here.

1/

It's not just that complaining about the scant food would be ungrateful or upsetting for the Cratchits.

It would be HERETICAL: it would go against a shared belief, an ethical code that they share implicitly, that what they have is enough.

2/

Their poverty is the elephant in the room, but their moral code dictates that family, humility and gratitude are how one lives, not jealousy or anger.

3/

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GCSE Macbeth

@GCSE_Macbeth

27 Oct 20

SYBIL BIRLING.

I’ve been thinking about Sybil a lot in the last week or so, about her treatment of Eva, and how it resonates with current questions about our treatment of the poor in times of need.

1/

It’s significant that JBP introduces Sybil as an almost comical character. Remember: Sybil’s generation would have all but died out by 1945, and those in the audience in their 50s or 60s would recognise themselves in Sheila and Eric, and their parents’ gen. in Mr and Mrs B.

2/

So Sybil sits on stage at curtain up, presumably dressed to stand out as her “husband’s social superior”, a relic of the Victorian upper class.

And her first contributions make her seem deliberately out of date:

3/

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GCSE Macbeth

@GCSE_Macbeth

4 Oct 20

I'm making a small but significant change in how I approach a couple of key moments in Macbeth.

I won't be using the words "regret", "remorse" or "guilt" to describe the emotions of Macbeth or Lady Macbeth.

Let me explain...

1/

What Macbeth experiences in 2:2, staggering out of Duncan's chamber, isn't guilt. It's horror. It's digust at his own actions, and a quickening sense of deep psychological damage done to himself.

It isn't guilt or remorse for his actions.

2/

Someone who says "I am afraid to think what I have done" is not feeling remorseful. They are feeling repulsion and fear.

Macbeth's desperation to clear his hands of blood isn't a sign of feeling *guilty* as such. It's wanting himself to be clean, not to see the deed undone.

3/

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GCSE Macbeth

@GCSE_Macbeth

26 Sep 20

A quick thread about P.

English EduTwitter often bemoans the use of PEE, PEAL, PETAL etc in GCSE responses, for some valid reasons. In my opinion these discussions often miss the biggest issue with paragraph formulae:

What is a POINT, anyway?

1/

Let’s say I’m answering a gcse question on Inspector Calls:

“How does Priestley present the character of Eric in the play?”

Consider the options I have for the start of my opening paragraph:

2/

a) Priestley introduces the character of Eric as “half-shy, half-assertive”.

b) Priestley introduces the character of Eric as a contrast to Mr Birling and Gerald.

c) Priestley introduces Eric through his reliance on alcohol.

d) Priestley introduces Eric as immature.

3/

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GCSE Macbeth

@GCSE_Macbeth

5 Sep 20

Some ideas about OZYMANDIAS, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818.

1) I met a Traveller from an antique land

Shelley began writing Ozymandias after the British Museum acquired a statue of that figure (Ramesses II). It’s important that this poem describes a statue *in situ*...

1/

Not in a museum. The framing device allows for a reading of the statue in its original location.

An important theme of the poem is how meaning is made and changes: the meaning of the statue is different if you see it in the desert, and different to what Ozy himself intended.

2/

We don’t really use the word “antique” as an adjective in everyday speech now. It means old, but it means more than old I think. Shakespeare uses the word specifically to reference the classical world, the ancient past, and I think it has that meaning here too.

3/

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