Grade 9 Macbeth Essay Argument

Mastering essay structure is one of the most effective ways to push your Macbeth responses into the top mark bands, regardless of which exam board you are studying. The difference between a solid Grade 5 or 6 essay and a perceptive Grade 9 response often comes down to the quality, complexity, and sustainability of your argument. A great essay isn't just a collection of random quote analyses; it is a cohesive, driven thesis that answers the question with deep insight from the first sentence to the last.

In this video, I break down my tips and strategies for crafting, expressing, and sustaining Grade 9 arguments for both character and thematic essay questions. We’ll look at how to move past simple, linear points so you can develop truly complex thesis statements that impress top-band examiners. I’ll also share practical techniques to ensure your central thesis remains active throughout every paragraph (without sounding repetitive or forced) alongside strategies for integrating high-level analysis directly into your overall argument.

Timestamp
0.00 What is an argument?
2.42 Key features of grade 9 arguments
7.40 How to have a complex, perceptive idea for character questions
12.59 How to express your perceptive idea for character questions
16.53 How to have a complex, perceptive idea for thematic questions
20.27 How to express your perceptive idea for thematic questions
22.29 How to sustain a grade 9 character argument across the essay
24.33 How to sustain a grade 9 thematic argument across the essay
28.01 How to stop your essay argument being repetitive
31.30 How to do grade 9 analysis
33.55 Summary of the strategies covered in this video

This video is on my YouTube channel. However, there are a few benefits to watching it here instead:

1. You can register to keep a track of which videos you’ve watched
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There are also multiple resources to help you in the Study Materials section:

Unlocking Shakespeare Study Guide

This is the perfect accompaniment to my video on how to read Shakespeare's language. It goes back over the strategies with more examples and - most importantly - more opportunities for you to practice putting those strategies to use.

Macbeth Wide Margin Textbook

If you don't have a copy of the play to annotate, then this is a must, must, MUST have. If you do have a copy of the play, but it's one of those editions where they have filled every inch of the page with only slightly useful information and have left practically no space for your notes, then my version is also going to be ideal. The wide margins of this version mean that there is plenty of space for your notes. I have still provided translations for lots of the archaic language, and I've provided a list of characters at the start too. It is basically everything I always wished was in the copies of Macbeth I had to use to teach! If you are from a school and would like to order physical copies of the textbook, you can find it on Amazon too.

Macbeth Hexagons Game

If you are studying Macbeth for the purposes of an exam, then this is a fantastic, quick and easy revision game (dare I call it 'fun'?). The basic idea is that every hexagon has a character, theme or some sort of important technique on it. You have to join the hexagons up by connecting the things that link. It's a great way to practice making links and also revise what you know about every important aspect of this play.

If there are any videos or resources you'd like to help you with the study of this play, then please do leave a comment and let me know. I know that my videos only scratch the surface at the moment and you can rest assured that I fully intend to release videos on all the other characters, themes and key techniques. I'm also planning to release model essays so that you can spot the patterns of approach across top grade essays.

Lesson Transcript:

The first thing we need to consider is just: what is an argument, and why is it important? Because essentially, an argument is your answer to the question that you've been asked in the exam. And in that sense, it's incredibly important, because you want your answer to the question to be relevant to the question.

One of the really common mistakes that hold people back from getting the very highest marks is they end up just writing everything they know in a kind of regurgitation splurge in my head, giant wave of green goop kind of thing, of everything they know about that character, or about that theme, or just about Macbeth in general. What arguments are about is that you're focused, you're specific, you've got an angle you're looking to talk about in your answer, and you stick to that angle. That's part of the key to a really good answer to an essay question, because the examiner knows that there's loads of different things you could have talked about, and they also know that you know how to narrow your focus down to a key area.

And with that key area you've narrowed down to, there's that question of: how simple an idea is it versus how complex and sophisticated an idea it is? And I'm going to look in this video at: what does that mean, having a simple or a complex idea about the play Macbeth? And again, that's really important, because of course, if you've just got a really simple, basic idea, that is not showing as deep an understanding of the play as a much more complex idea. So, of course, the complex idea is going to get more marks, is going to do better.

The argument is also really important because it's like the skeleton for your entire essay. You might have incredible analysis, but if it isn't serving an argument, if it's not serving a clear purpose, it's going to fall a bit flat, because it's like: okay, great, yeah, the semantic field creates this effect, sure—why do I care? That's the key thing. I think the argument is answering that: "Why do I give a damn?" That key question: you're telling your reader, like, all of this analysis is really, really important because it serves to prove this argument. All of this stuff I'm saying about context is really important because it serves to prove this argument. Your argument is the whole reason why anyone is bothering to, you know, listen to you at this point in time.

And when it comes to actually writing a Grade 9 argument across the exam boards—and this, I think, also encompasses regardless of whether you're doing this in exam conditions or as coursework—there are typically three things they're looking for at the highest grade level for a Macbeth essay:

The first is that you are evaluative. They sometimes word it as being critical. I'll explain again in more detail specifically with Macbeth what that looks like. But in general, that means that you're not looking at something as like there's one way of looking at it, there's one angle, there's right, there's wrong. You're looking at the 50 shades of grey, if you will, of the situation. You're looking at the complexity. It's like: it could be like this, but it also can be like this.

There's also an evaluative aspect in judging that question of why. Why is a character—Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo—why are they presented a certain way? And you're evaluating, you're judging: "Oh, it could be because of this; it could be because of this." So evaluation and being critical is not critical in the sense of: "Shakespeare is rubbish. Why are we still studying him? The guy's been dead for 500 years. Let's just all go on Twitter and read through Elon Musk's feed, that's way more useful." It's not that kind of critical. It's much more the kind of: could it be this, but it could also be this, and that kind of nuance of discussion there, versus just being like, "There is one answer, I will give one answer, end of conversation."

The second thing that they're classically looking for is being perceptive. You know how I was saying before about the simple-to-complex spectrum? Perceptive means you're at the complex end of the spectrum. And that is very heavily tied into being evaluative. If you're being evaluative, then it's very possible you are also being perceptive, because, you know, you're looking at the complexity of a situation: it could be this, it could be that. It is possible to be perceptive without being evaluative, though, by just having an idea that is really insightful and showing a deep understanding of the play in a way that other students don't. Typically—and again, I feel like I keep saying this, but I'm saying it because it's true, and I am going to talk about this more in a little bit with specific reference to Macbeth—the form that that takes is your ability to look at how characters are being used as tools, rather than just talking about them as if they're real people.

The third thing is about thoroughness. So it's all well and good having an amazing argument that you set up in your introduction, but is that then what you talk about in your main body? Do you then actually prove that argument by analysis and the like? If the answer is no, then you're not going to be able to get into that top mark area, that full-mark Grade 9 area. You have to be able to set up a killer argument and sustain it all the way through; you have to be able to prove it. So that's why argument and analysis can't ever be completely separated: analysis only makes sense because of the argument, and the argument is only proven by the analysis. So, you know, they are BFFs forever, and you need to be thinking about the two.

Now, I'm not talking about analysis in this video, because the skill of analysis is not necessarily going to change for Macbeth versus An Inspector Calls versus Jekyll and Hyde versus Still I Rise. It's going to be the same. Essentially, whatever text you're looking at, the skills are the same. So if you're looking for that guidance on how to analyze to a really high level, have a look at some of my videos on that: my videos on how to analyze, the strategies for analyzing to a high level, how to analyze a poem's structure, blah blah blah blah blah—you get the idea, just have a look at those instead. But here, we're focusing just on how to get that framework right, how to get the bones, the skeleton of your essay right, so that you can then, you know, put some muscle, put some... I don't want to keep going with this metaphor because it's going to become really creepy!

I already mentioned this a little bit, which I shouldn't have because I'm going to be mentioning it again so soon. But with all these three—the evaluative, the perceptive, the thorough—the key strategy to getting all of that with a Macbeth essay is that you are essentially going to examine how characters are used as tools by Shakespeare to convey wider messages. One of my biggest pet peeves in the world of English is talking about characters as if they are real people. "Macbeth is conflicted. Oh, poor him, his wife's being mean to him." But he isn't real! Like, yes, he is conflicted, because Shakespeare is presenting him as so in order to explore a particular idea. And that's the kind of focus you need to have in your Macbeth essays: it's not "Macbeth is...", it's "Shakespeare presents Macbeth as [...] in order to...". That's the key distinction.

I'm going to start off with the more specific strategies by showing you what I mean by the simple versus complex, that perceptive idea. And we're going to look at it with this example question: "How is Lady Macbeth presented?"

Now, a classic answer to this question would be that a student would say: "She is evil and she's manipulative." Fine. There's a couple of issues with this. First of all, it's talking about Lady Macbeth as if she is a real person. Not great. Second of all, it's very one-sided: there is one answer and that's it, there's not much complexity to her—she just is evil, is manipulative.

On the other hand, a more perceptive idea would look more like this: "She's used as a means of questioning whether it is possible to challenge gender norms. Manipulative proves she challenges; tormented by guilt proves she can't."

Now, I know just looking at that, a lot of students will go, "Oh, okay, the second one uses a lot more words and it sounds fancy, so that must be the high-mark one." So I just want to jump in here and point out: more words does not equal more marks, people! I cannot tell you how many essays of utter waffle I have read that actually have not remotely been perceptive. Fancy words does not equal a Grade 9. Writing five words when you could have written one does not equal a Grade 9.

What does equal a Grade 9 is having a clear thematic link when you're answering a question about character. So focusing on how that character is being used as a tool by Shakespeare to explore a particular theme, to convey a particular message, and almost starting with that thematic link and then, therefore, how the character is presented. And then, when you're looking at how the character is presented, you want to try to have contrasting ideas so that you're able to look at the complexity. And that is 100% possible with the characters of—well, not every character, but of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, for sure. You are going to be able to look at how they are like this in the beginning, but then they're really different by the end, or by the middle, or something like that. They have a lot of character development. So you want to make sure that when you're having your ideas of how they're presented, you're looking at that contrast.

For your characters that don't have much contrast—let's say if you've got an unlikely but possible question of something like just "How is Banquo presented?"—what you're going to do there is a very useful trick: Banquo, King Duncan, Macduff, Malcolm, they are all designed to be the foil to Macbeth.

Now, "foil" is an actual literary device; I'm not talking about the aluminium stuff you wrap your sandwiches in. A foil is a character that is designed to be like an opposite of somebody else. So Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm, etc., they are all designed to be the foil of Macbeth because they're his opposite. So what you're going to be able to do is, first of all—let's say, again, it was "How is Banquo presented?"—you're going to be able to start off with the thematic link to Banquo. What is the point of Banquo's existence? And the point of Banquo's existence is all about exploring how it is possible to not let ambition get to you, to be truly loyal, and so on and so forth, and maintain your loyalty and your moral compass in order for him to be the foil to Macbeth. Because then what you can do in your essay is you can examine how Banquo is presented, and then keep coming in with how that makes him the opposite to Macbeth.

This isn't you going off-topic of the question, because the whole point of the play Macbeth is Macbeth. He is the point! So all the other characters are essentially about serving his character. So you can say that in your introduction: the character of Banquo and how he is presented is inextricably tied to Macbeth and how Macbeth is presented, and what we're supposed to be taking from that. And therefore, to examine Banquo, to examine King Duncan, to examine Malcolm, you must also examine their relationship with Macbeth, how they contrast with Macbeth. And you can then kind of keep going back and forth.

So, I know I've gone off on a little tangent here, but that's just an important top tip I have for those of you that are dealing with having to write essays about the smaller characters: bring them back to the big boy, bring them back to Macbeth and how they are really important there.

The same is still true of Lady Macbeth. If you got a question on Lady Macbeth, you can look at how she is—she's not a foil to Macbeth, obviously, but how she's like a parallel, you know: how she influences him, how she follows a similar path to him, and then how she ends up being completely different. Yeah, you can examine that similarity and difference between the paths the two characters go on. That being said, Lady Macbeth is definitely a meaty enough character for you to just talk about her on her own without masses about Macbeth. So for Lady Macbeth, I'd say just talk about her.

So what I've written here is just note form of the perceptive idea. But another thing that's important to keep in mind when you're trying to write out your idea is how you express yourself. You want to express yourself in a formal, concise, and clear way, because that is a key level of just academic writing in general. So I'm going to give you an example.

What I've got here is a skeleton—I know I've already said skeleton for your argument, but this is like a skeleton in your skeleton... yeah, I really need to lose the skeleton analogy! We've got this example of an introduction you can use in an essay where essentially you can plug in the gaps in order to answer a huge range of questions, and then it can help you with having that eloquent structure every time.

So, I've already plugged in the first gap: "Shakespeare's presentation of Lady Macbeth..." But of course, if the question wasn't Lady Macbeth, if the question was Banquo, if the question was Macbeth, if the question was the old man at the gate (don't worry, it will never be the old man at the gate), then you can just put that character name in instead. But it runs like this:

"Shakespeare's presentation of Lady Macbeth is inextricably tied to his exploration of [Theme]. One of the key messages of the play is [Key Message on Theme]. This serves to explain why Lady Macbeth is initially presented as [Adjective 1], and then later presented as [Adjective 2]."

Now, in that first box goes the theme; just name the theme: "inextricably tied to his exploration of ambition, kingship, tyranny, violence, gender"—whatever it is that you are saying is the key theme that links to this character. That's the first way that you're narrowing your argument down, because again, if we think about the character of Macbeth, he is tied to every single theme that the play explores. So you're narrowing down to focus on one particular theme.

So once you've identified the theme, you then use a colon—nice, eloquent style of helping make sure your sentences stay concise but also clear—and you say: "One of the key messages of the play is [X]." Now, in that second spot, that is where you would say a key idea for that theme that you put in the first spot: "inextricably tied to his exploration of ambition; one of the key messages of the play is..." what it is that Shakespeare wants to say about ambition. And again, there's multiple ideas that Shakespeare has, so you're narrowing down again by being like, "I'm going to focus on this part of the theme."

You then come in with the final sentence: "This serves to explain why Lady Macbeth is initially presented as [X] and then later presented as [X]." That's where your two adjectives go in of the different ways you would describe Lady Macbeth: Lady Macbeth towards the start, Lady Macbeth towards the end.

One big warning about adjectives: prepare these in advance! Make that part of your Macbeth revision: thinking about the adjectives you can use to describe the characters before King Duncan's death or before the witches' prophecies—whatever it is that's your kind of beginning of the play, middle of the play, end of the play, however you're defining it. Make sure you've thought about those adjectives, and make sure you've thought about them carefully. You need to make sure you truly understand what the words mean.

The reason I say that is because so many students will use an adjective when they think they know what it means, then an English teacher goes to read their essay and thinks, "That isn't a very accurate... like, it's close, but it's not completely accurate." You need to make sure that your adjective is 100% accurate. And so you need to double-check it at Collins Dictionary and make sure it means what you think it means, and that its meaning definitely applies to the character you're talking about.

Once you've got this introduction, it's not very long—it's only three sentences—but once you've got this introduction, you've clearly placed in your argument the outline of what it is you're going to talk about. You've given it that thematic focus, and you've clearly established your conflicting adjectives. So you're putting yourself in a nice, strong position here.

But as I've said, just that introduction is not going to immediately put you in the Grade 9 category, for a key reason: you haven't proven it yet! So it's going to then come down to your main body and what you say there. That's going to be key in actually getting that highest grade, because you set yourself up for a high grade, but you've got to sustain it in the actual main body of the essay as well.

When it comes to questions about theme, the strategy is slightly different, but still very similar. To show you what I mean, we're going to use this example question: "How is the theme of ambition presented?"

And again, I'm going to start off by showing you that difference between your simple idea versus your more complex, perceptive idea.

So, first of all: "Ambition is not good because it makes you do bad things." That's how Shakespeare presents ambition. Versus: "Shakespeare presents it as the conflict between one's own ambition and the moral obligation to society, as exemplified by Macbeth."

Warning here: yes, eloquence has played a part. The first one is phrased with very basic language; the second is phrased with much more sophisticated language. But it is not the sophisticated language alone that makes it a perceptive idea; it is that the sophisticated language is more accurate than the simple language. "Not good" is incredibly vague and wide-reaching in what it potentially means; "moral obligation to society" is very specific in what it means.

So again, don't just use a thesaurus to chuck out a bunch of fancy words that mean utterly nothing, because it's a pain in English teachers' behinds! They'd much rather you were just clear in what you were saying. That being said, make sure your vocabulary is as specific as you can make it. The more specific, the more accurate you are, the better you're going to do, because you're showing a more specific and accurate understanding of the play. And am I the only one for whom the word "specific" has just lost all meaning?

The key trick that I'm trying to demonstrate in this example of how to talk about themes is essentially: always look at a conflict in the theme.

If we look more closely at this one—"the conflict between one's own ambition and the moral obligation to society"—it's like Shakespeare is saying ambition is this, but also there's this over here. And that is true of like every single theme of Macbeth. When you're looking at the theme of kingship, it's good kingship versus tyranny. When you're looking at the theme of violence, it's violence that is justified and violence that is not justified. Fate versus free will: the conflict is baked into its name—it's about fate versus free will and which one's in control. All of the themes have some kind of conflict. So always find that "versus": it's about this versus this.

And again, that's something you're going to be able to prepare in advance of the exam. You're going to have been able to do your revision to think about all the different themes and, if you got that theme, what is the conflict that you would talk about?

The other thing you want to do to help narrow the focus of your essay is then pick one, maximum of two characters that you're going to explore that conflict through. So with this one on ambition, I picked Macbeth; I could have also picked Lady Macbeth. The reason that you might want to pick one is if there's a lot you can say for that one character. On the other hand, actually, the conflict in the theme is exemplified by the conflict between two characters. Like if we take the theme of kingship versus tyranny: Macbeth is the tyranny; King Duncan and Malcolm are kingship. And so when you're exploring that theme of kingship, you're going to be able to look at King Duncan/Malcolm for the good kingship, and then contrast that with our tyrannical Macbeth in order to really explore what Shakespeare is trying to say on that theme.

So again, here I've got for you a model introduction where you're going to be able to plug in the gaps for dealing with questions about themes:

"In exploring the theme of [Theme], Shakespeare sought to explore the conflict between [Conflict Side A] and [Conflict Side B]. This conflict is keenly exemplified in the presentation of [Character(s)]."

So it just starts off: "In exploring the theme of [Theme]..."—in that box just goes whatever the theme is in the question. And you then follow that with: "...Shakespeare sought to explore the conflict between [X] and [X]." That's where your "versus" goes in: fate and free will, kingship and tyranny, justified and unjustified violence—whatever it is that you're saying is the "versus." And then you finish that off with: "This conflict is keenly exemplified in the presentation of..." and that's where you put your characters: the presentation of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, of Macbeth and King Duncan, so on and so forth.

Again, it's nice and short. When you're in the exam, you don't need to put masses and masses in your introduction. You just want to sort of establish what it is you're going to be talking about, and then you focus on going into more detail, more development in your main body.

If you're doing Macbeth as coursework, you probably do want to flesh this out, and my top tip of how to flesh it out is with a reference to context. So you would add on to this—and this is true for character questions as well—you would add on a third sentence (or fourth sentence if you're dealing with my character example) basically explaining how the context around the Jacobean era—Shakespeare, Christian faith, the Divine Right of Kings, James I, whatever it is—how that context has influenced what Shakespeare's key messages are for that theme, and/or how it has influenced the presentation of a particular character.

One important thing to remember, though, is that you need to double-check that you are actually marked on context. I'm pretty sure all the exam boards assess context for Macbeth, but just double-check in case you're a weird exam board that doesn't, because if they don't mark you on context, there's no point talking about it.

Once you've nailed that introduction and you've got that initial "Here's my Grade 9 idea," it's now time to prove it. And so for that, we need to think about what you need to keep doing in the main body of your essay to sustain that Grade 9 argument.

If we're dealing with the questions on character, your basic pattern is going to look like this:

1. You're going to look at the character before. Now, what they are before will vary depending on what you've chosen to focus on. For example, you could do Macbeth before and after he kills King Duncan, or Macbeth before and after he hears the witches' prophecies. Lady Macbeth would be a different situation, because with Lady Macbeth, she's still pretty similar immediately after the killing of King Duncan, so it's like Lady Macbeth before she feels the guilt versus after she feels the guilt. Either way, you're aiming to basically structure your essay so that you get to examine character development. Those contrasting adjectives that you would have put into your introduction, you're going to examine those: the character before, that's your first adjective; the character after, that's your other contrasting adjective.

2. And you're going to end with a short conclusion that just establishes: why has there been this development?

One thing to note, if I go back to what I was saying before about: what if you've got a smaller character like Banquo, and how you can use Macbeth as a way to help flesh out an essay on Banquo? In that case, you're not going to follow this structure, because there is no "before" and "after" for Banquo: he stays the same the whole way through. Instead, you would be like: "Here's one trait of Banquo, and in that same idea, how it contrasts with Macbeth. Here's a second trait of Banquo, and how it contrasts with Macbeth." So that's how you're going to flesh out your essay there. You essentially just want two adjectives; they're not going to be contrasting, because the likes of Banquo and King Duncan and Malcolm and so on don't have character development—they stay the same. So instead, you're just going to have two adjectives to describe them, but for each adjective, you'll contrast them to the main man, Mackie B.

When we're dealing with theme, on the other hand, we have a slightly different structure. You know how in your introduction you establish what the conflict is in the theme? Well, that's then how you structure your essay:

1. You first look at the first part of the conflict (e.g., good kingship).

2. And then the second part of the conflict (versus tyranny). You would prove that part of it is exploring what makes a good king, and then prove that it is also exploring the harms of tyranny.

3. And then your conclusion is: what is the key message we're supposed to be taking away from this conflict—from this fate versus free will, ambition versus moral obligation to society, etc., etc.? What is it we as the audience are supposed to be taking away from that?

So it's almost like you're asking not how the conflict resolves, but whose side in the conflict are we as the audience supposed to be on? Does Shakespeare want us to think tyranny is the way to go, or does he want us to think good kingship is the way to go? Does he want us to believe that moral obligation to society is the way to go, or does he want us to believe your own ambition no matter what is the way to go? Which side do you think Shakespeare wants us to be on, considering everything that you've said?

I haven't broken this main body structure down by number of paragraphs. A lot of students will often say to me, "Miss, how many paragraphs should I write? How many paragraphs?" And here's the thing: at Grade 9, that's not a question to ask, because it's not about how many paragraphs. You could write seven paragraphs of utter rubbish, and you could write three that would get you full marks. The key to a high-mark answer is that you know the Goldilocks system: you know not to write too much and be too unfocused and keep talking; you also know not to write too little and not prove your idea and not have any analysis. You know how to get it just right. You know how many paragraphs you need, how much analysis you need to do, in order to fully prove your idea.

It is possible that this structure—and the same goes for the character one—is essentially four paragraphs: introduction, first part of conflict, second part of conflict, conclusion. The two in the middle, the first part and second part of the conflict, will be humongous because of the amount of analysis you're going to do, but it is possible that you could write it as four paragraphs.

That being said, you might break it down further. So when looking at the first part of the conflict, let's say for kingship, you might break it down and do three paragraphs: "I'm going to do a paragraph on how being a good king requires you to develop your subjects. Then I'm going to do a paragraph on how being a good king means that you are fair and just and loyal. And then I'm going to do a paragraph on how being a good king means that you embody Christian values." So actually, looking at the first part of the conflict, you've spent three paragraphs talking about it because you've broken up what being a good king means.

There's no formula for the number of paragraphs. You have to be able to judge what it is you're going to talk about and how many paragraphs that is going to take, which is a skill that comes with practice and also revision. You know who's in Macbeth, you know what the themes are of Macbeth—there is hypothetically nothing stopping you from planning and writing an essay for every single character and every single theme, and nailing it in advance of your exam.

The next thing I want to talk about is just a strategy for how you start the first sentence of each of your paragraphs in your main body, to stop them from being repetitive from your introduction.

So to show you what I mean, first of all, we've got here an introduction for that "How is Lady Macbeth presented?" question:

"Shakespeare's presentation of Lady Macbeth is inextricably tied to his exploration of gender. One of the key messages of the play is the impossibility of separating yourself from gender norms. This serves to explain why Lady Macbeth is initially presented as manipulative, a masculine trait, and then later presented as guilt-ridden, a feminine trait."

So that's the introduction. Now, imagining that I wanted to have my section on Lady Macbeth initially as manipulative, and my section on Lady Macbeth later as guilt-ridden: how am I actually going to phrase that in my paragraphs?

One thing that students often do is they essentially just repeat themselves. So they would start the first section with the sentence: "Lady Macbeth is initially presented as manipulative, a masculine trait." And then when they hit their next section, they say: "Lady Macbeth is later presented as guilt-ridden, a feminine trait." They just repeat word-for-word what they've already said. That is not a good thing to do. The reason for that is you're not showing any development from your introduction; you're just literally repeating yourself.

You need to add on a new layer to this idea, and the key way to do that is with one of the greatest words in the English language: because.

• "Lady Macbeth is initially presented as manipulative due to her coercive behavior towards Macbeth."

• "Lady Macbeth is later presented as guilt-ridden because of her inability to accept her role in King Duncan's death."

There we go! So what you can see there is that by using "because" or "due to", you are able to develop by getting more specific about how we see that presentation, that then can feed into the evidence and the analysis that you do.

Of course, a really important thing to note here in wording is that right now, it reads as if I'm talking about Lady Macbeth as if she is a real person. If you do that in your opening topic sentence, make sure you then sort that out in your analysis, as I'm going to show you in a second: you come back to what Shakespeare is trying to say. You can also sort it out in your initial sentences, though, by phrasing it as: "Shakespeare initially presents Lady Macbeth as...", "Shakespeare later presents her as..." Just chuck Shakespeare's name in there, and that will help you make sure that you're placing that emphasis on what the writer is doing.

As well as getting those opening sentences of your paragraphs right, it's also important to make sure you come back to your argument at the end of your paragraphs. So you can see an example on the side here:

"Lady Macbeth is initially presented as manipulative due to her coercive behavior towards Macbeth."

[You then do a bunch of glorious analysis, and then you link your analysis back to your original argument:]

"This coercive behavior ultimately makes Lady Macbeth appear to subvert Jacobean feminine gender norms, as she is able to successfully adopt the traits of a man and use them to gain more power."

So you've come back to your argument. Make sure you link your analysis back to your argument: they're best friends, they don't like to be separated! Keep coming back to how they relate to one another; keep coming back to what your analysis has to do with your argument. That's another really important part of getting that Grade 9 argument sustained the whole way through.

I know I said I wasn't going to talk about how to do Grade 9 analysis here, because I've got other videos on that skill generally, but there is just one aspect I really want to hammer home about Macbeth. One of the amazing things about Shakespeare is that there are really often multiple ways to interpret the quotes in the play, and that really plays into your argument in terms of trying to be evaluative and critical.

To show you what I mean, I've got a quote here from towards the beginning of the play, when Lady Macbeth says:

"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..."

So she's asking for spirits to come and give her the strength to be able to manipulate Macbeth and go ahead with killing King Duncan. Now, there's two different ways of analyzing this:

On the one hand, she is subverting gender norms because she has called on spirits to unsex her. You can analyze that imperative; you can analyze the metaphor and being filled from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty—all of that, and how that shows that she has successfully been able to subvert gender expectations.

On the other hand, you can flip it 180 degrees: the fact that she has to tell spirits to do that to her, she has to call for it, shows that it isn't natural. Thinking of that theme of unnatural versus natural in Macbeth: it doesn't come naturally to her. So, actually, she wasn't subverting gender expectations herself; she was having to ask something else to do it. So that again links to Shakespeare's ideas about gender, because Shakespeare's whole underlying argument is it's not possible to fight against your gender norms and the way you naturally are, because, of course, back then they thought gender was the natural way you are, as opposed to a social construct.

So when we think about analyzing this quote, we've got two great, different angles on the exact same quote. And that is something where, possible, you want to try to do in your essays: look at how one quote can be interpreted in two different ways—a way that a quote can show Macbeth is both in control and out of control, powerful and powerless, all of that good stuff. Because that is really going to help you with getting that evaluative, critical aspect not just in your argument, but also in your analysis too.

So the last thing I'm going to do is just recap everything I've said in this video:

1. The first basic top tip is that you always need to have a thematic focus. What that means is that you talk about how characters are used as tools by Shakespeare. You place a lot of emphasis on talking about Shakespeare's intentions: what are his ideas that he's trying to get across? And you also look at the contextual influences: what was going on at the time that is influencing how Shakespeare presents these characters, but also why the key messages of the play are what they are? How does the Christian faith of the Jacobean era influence Macbeth's decision to present good kingship versus tyranny, for example?

2. The second key thing is you want to make sure you're always being evaluative by studying conflicts. Look at conflicting character development: ways that characters can be like this, but also like this. Look at multiple ways of interpreting quotes. And with the themes, don't just look at it in a simple way of "this is all Shakespeare is saying." Look at it as the conflict: for every single theme, there's this idea of "is it this or is it this?", "is it this or is it this?" And always examine how Shakespeare is exploring the two sides to that conflict.