Assignment : Classics in Drama
Submitted by : Iqra Taqweem
Roll# 52
Bs English (6th semester)
Topic: Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Submitted to : Ma’am Rozmeena
Date of Submission : May 20, 2022
Macbeth
William Shakespeare :
Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor. He was born on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-
upon-Avon. His father was a successful local businessman and his mother was the daughter of a
landowner. Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the
world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and nicknamed the Bard of
Avon. He wrote about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which
the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and
are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Summary
Act I
On a bleak Scottish moorland, Macbeth and Banquo, two of King Duncan's generals,
discover three strange women (witches). The witches prophesy that Macbeth will be promoted
twice: to Thane of Cawdor (a rank of the aristocracy bestowed by grateful kings) and King of
Scotland. Banquo's descendants will be kings, but Banquo isn't promised any kingdom himself.
The generals want to hear more, but the "weird sisters" disappear.
Soon afterwards, King Duncan names Macbeth Thane of Cawdor as a reward for his success in
the recent battles. The promotion seems to support the prophecy. The King then proposes to
make a brief visit that night to Macbeth's castle at Inverness. Lady Macbeth receives news from
her husband about the prophecy and his new title. She vows to help him become king by
whatever means are necessary
Act II
Macbeth returns to his castle, followed almost immediately by King Duncan. The Macbeths plot
together to kill Duncan and wait until everyone is asleep. At the appointed time, Lady Macbeth
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gives the guards drugged wine so Macbeth can enter and kill the King. He regrets this almost
immediately, but his wife reassures him. She leaves the bloody daggers by the dead king just
before Macduff, a nobleman, arrives. When Macduff discovers the murder, Macbeth kills the
drunken guards in a show of rage and retribution. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee,
fearing for their own lives; but they are, nevertheless, blamed for the murder.
Act III
Macbeth becomes King of Scotland but is plagued by feelings of insecurity. He remembers the
prophecy that Banquo's descendants will inherit the throne and arranges for Banquo and his
son Fleance to be killed. In the darkness, Banquo is murdered, but his son escapes the
assassins. At his state banquet that night, Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and worries the
courtiers with his mad response. Lady Macbeth dismisses the court and unsuccessfully tries to
calm her husband.
Act IV
Macbeth seeks out the witches who say that he will be safe until a local wood, Birnam Wood,
marches into battle against him. He also need not fear anyone born of woman (that sounds
secure, no loop-holes here). They also prophesy that the Scottish succession will still come from
Banquo's son. Macbeth embarks on a reign of terror, slaughtering many, including Macduff's
family. Macduff had gone to seek Malcolm (one of Duncan's sons who fled) at the court of the
English king. Malcolm is young and unsure of himself, but Macduff, pained with grief, persuades
him to lead an army against Macbeth.
Act V
Macbeth feels safe in his remote castle at Dunsinane until he is told that Birnam Wood is
moving towards him. Malcolm's army is carrying branches from the forest as camouflage for
their assault on Macbeth's stronghold. Meanwhile, an overwrought and conscience-ridden Lady
Macbeth walks in her sleep and tells her secrets to her doctor. She commits suicide. As the final
battle commences, Macbeth hears of Lady Macbeth's suicide and mourns. In the midst of a
losing battle, Macduff challenges Macbeth. Macbeth learns Macduff is the child of a caesarean
birth (loophole!), realises he is doomed, and submits to his enemy. Macduff triumphs and brings
the head of the traitor Macbeth to Malcolm. Malcolm declares peace and goes to Scone to be
crowned king.
Characters:
Macbeth
Macbeth is a Scottish general and the thane of Glamis who is led to wicked thoughts by the
prophecies of the three witches, especially after their prophecy that he will be made thane of
Cawdor comes true. Macbeth is a brave soldier and a powerful man, but he is not a virtuous
one. He is easily tempted into murder to fulfill his ambitions to the throne, and once he commits
his first crime and is crowned King of Scotland, he embarks on further atrocities with increasing
ease. Ultimately, Macbeth proves himself better suited to the battlefield than to political intrigue,
because he lacks the skills necessary to rule without being a tyrant. His response to every
problem is violence and murder. Unlike Shakespeare’s great villains, such as Iago
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in Othello and Richard III in Richard III, Macbeth is never comfortable in his role as a criminal.
He is unable to bear the psychological consequences of his atrocities.
Lady Macbeth; The Fourth Witch
Macbeth’s wife, a deeply ambitious woman who lusts for power and position. Early in the play,
she seems to be the stronger and more ruthless of the two, as she urges her husband to kill
Duncan and seize the crown. After the bloodshed begins, however, Lady Macbeth falls victim to
guilt and madness to an even greater degree than her husband. Her conscience affects her to
such an extent that she eventually commits suicide. Interestingly, she and Macbeth are
presented as being deeply in love, and many of Lady Macbeth’s speeches imply that her
influence over her husband is primarily sexual. Their joint alienation from the world, occasioned
by their partnership in crime, seems to strengthen the attachment that they feel to each another.
The Three Witches
Three “black and midnight hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using charms, spells, and
prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths of Banquo and
his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality. The play leaves the witches’ true identity
unclear—aside from the fact that they are servants of Hecate, we know little about their place in
the cosmos. In some ways, they resemble the mythological Fates, who impersonally weave the
threads of human destiny. They clearly take a perverse delight in using their knowledge of the
future to toy with and destroy human beings.
Banquo
The brave, noble general whose children, according to the witches’ prophecy, will inherit the
Scottish throne. Like Macbeth, Banquo thinks ambitious thoughts, but he does not translate
those thoughts into action. In a sense, Banquo’s character stands as a rebuke to Macbeth,
since he represents the path Macbeth chose not to take: a path in which ambition need not lead
to betrayal and murder. Appropriately, then, it is Banquo’s ghost—and not Duncan’s—that
haunts Macbeth. In addition to embodying Macbeth’s guilt for killing Banquo, the ghost also
reminds Macbeth that he did not emulate Banquo’s reaction to the witches’ prophecy.
King Duncan
The good King of Scotland whom Macbeth, in his ambition for the crown, murders. Duncan is
the model of a virtuous, benevolent, and farsighted ruler. His death symbolizes the destruction
of an order in Scotland that can be restored only when Duncan’s line, in the person of Malcolm,
once more occupies the throne
Macduff
A Scottish nobleman hostile to Macbeth’s kingship from the start. He eventually becomes a
leader of the crusade to unseat Macbeth. The crusade’s mission is to place the rightful king,
Malcolm, on the throne, but Macduff also desires vengeance for Macbeth’s murder of Macduff’s
wife and young son.
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Malcolm
The son of Duncan, whose restoration to the throne signals Scotland’s return to order following
Macbeth’s reign of terror. Malcolm becomes a serious challenge to Macbeth with Macduff’s aid
(and the support of England). Prior to this, he appears weak and uncertain of his own power, as
when he and Donalbain flee Scotland after their father’s murder.
Hecate
The goddess of witchcraft, who helps the three witches work their mischief on Macbeth.
Fleance
Banquo’s son, who survives Macbeth’s attempt to murder him. At the end of the play, Fleance’s
whereabouts are unknown. Presumably, he may come to rule Scotland, fulfilling the witches’
prophecy that Banquo’s sons will sit on the Scottish throne.
Lennox
A Scottish nobleman.
Ross
A Scottish nobleman.
The Murderers
A group of ruffians conscripted by Macbeth to murder Banquo, Fleance (whom they fail to kill),
and Macduff’s wife and children.
Porter
The drunken doorman of Macbeth’s castle.
Lady Macduff
Macduff’s wife. The scene in her castle provides our only glimpse of a domestic realm other
than that of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. She and her home serve as contrasts to Lady Macbeth
and the hellish world of Inverness.
Donalbain
Duncan’s son and Malcolm’s younger brother.
Themes
Macbeth's theme of ambition:
One of the strongest themes in Macbeth is ambition and the destruction that can happen when hubris
and greed for power go unchecked. The title character of the play Macbeth is a Scottish general who
listens to the prophecy of three witches. The witches tell him he will become king, planting the seed of
ambition in his soul. Together with his wife, Macbeth commits increasingly more violent acts to achieve
his goal, sacrificing everything for ambition. Eventually, this pursuit of goals becomes
Macbeth’s hamartia, or fatal flaw.
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As the play progresses, the tension increases between ambition and what must be sacrificed to achieve
a goal. At various points, Macbeth himself is aware of this tension, as you can see in these lines where
he describes how he needs his ambition to succeed:
“I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’other”
At first, Macbeth is reluctant to resort to violence in service to his ambition, but with prompting from
Lady Macbeth, he slides down the slippery slope of sacrificing others for his own ends. Lady Macbeth
sees his reluctance and speaks about her own philosophy that power comes only to those who will set
aside moral concerns:
“Thou wouldst be great
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it.”
Macbeth Theme of Appearance and Reality
Another significant theme in the play is the disparity between appearance and reality. How people
perceive things, what their eyes see and what their own biases permit them to believe, is apparent
throughout Macbeth. Even as the play opens, the witches speak to this theme, indicating nothing is
what it may seem:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
Deception is a major part of Macbeth, which involves murder and cover-ups. When Macbeth kills
Duncan, Lady Macbeth tells him they must both dress in their night clothes in order to appear innocent.
Lady Macbeth directly describes the importance of appearance and deception in Act I when she says the
following:
“To beguile the time,
Look like the time,
Look like th' innocent flower
But be the serpent under 't.”
Theme of the Supernatural in Macbeth
Another important theme in Macbeth is the supernatural. It all starts with the witches, who offer the
prophecy about Macbeth’s future. Even Macbeth’s statement about the witches shows how they are
part of the supernatural:
“Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd.”
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Later, Macbeth sees an apparition of a dagger, another element of the supernatural. He has difficulty
determining whether the dagger is really there or is an element of his imagination:
"I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
Often, the theme of the supernatural in Macbeth directly relates to the theme of appearance vs. reality.
Macbeth has an increasing level of difficulty telling the difference between something that is
supernatural and something that his mind has created.
Macbeth Theme of Guilt
Guilt is one of the most significant themes in Macbeth since the play deals directly with murder and
other crimes. Macbeth’s guilt over the murder of Duncan and Banquo leads him to commit more crimes
in order to cover up his acts. He is tormented by the guilt and concern over the consequences of his
actions and loses his grasp on reality.
Lady Macbeth also feels guilt for her role in these crimes, and she tries to explain it away and give
herself a clean slate:
“What’s done
Cannot be undone.”
However, she is unable to clear her conscience and continues to be tormented. She begins to go insane.
When she speaks one of the most famous lines in the play, she is sleepwalking and dreaming that the
blood of the king is on her hands and cannot be washed away”
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!
Theme of Femininity and Masculinity
Femininity and masculinity represent another important theme of Macbeth. Specifically, Shakespeare
explores how both genders are related to violence.
In one scene, Macbeth urges his hired assassins to kill Banquo by questioning their masculinity. In
another, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s manhood when he waffles on his decision to kill Duncan:
“When you durst do it,
Then you were a man.”
play also explores how femininity and violence are related, painting the character of Lady Macbeth as
just as ambitious and ruthless as her husband but much more deceitful in her actions. Lady Macbeth
chafes at her restrictions, wishing to be less constrained by the expectations for her gender:
“Unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
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Of direst cruelty.”
Theme of Fate and Free Will in Macbeth
Another very important theme of Macbeth is the role of fate and how it interacts with free will. From
the very beginning, Macbeth is following a false prophecy that the witches presented. Is he fated to kill
Duncan? Or does he simply believe it is his fate and use his free will to make it happen?
In Act I, Macbeth states that he thinks that if fate has plans for him, it will require no action from him :
“If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me,
Without my stir.”
However, as the play progresses, Macbeth takes an ever more involved role in his own destiny,
continuously making ruthless choices in the service of ambition. His actions show that he doesn't want
to leave his future up to chance, despite what he may have said initially.
Macbeth as a Tragic Hero
A tragic hero must be good but he is not perfect. He has some error in judgment as a result of which he
moves from happiness to misery and ultimately dies. Macbeth is an example of Shakespearean tragic
hero. He is a person of great eminence. He is a man of noble birth and holds a lofty position in society.
Shakespeare has introduced him as a brave general, a bold, resolute man of action.
The tragic hero is neither too good nor too bad. In the character of Macbeth we also find both the good
and bad sides. When the Witches prophesy that Macbeth will be the king, he begins to have dark
thoughts of becoming the king. .
Ultimately, he assassinates King Duncan and becomes the king. He also does many heinous act including
ordering the murders of Banquo and Fleance, as well as the slaughter of every single member of
Macduff’s family in order to retain the throne.
However, Macbeth is not bad at all. At the beginning of the play, he is lauded as a great and loyal
soldier. Macbeth defeated Macdonwald and the Norwegian king in the battle. He is described as the
‘valour’s minion’ and ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’. Being pleased with Macbeth the king has granted him the
title of Thane of Cawdor and decides to honor him by visiting his palace in Inverness. Macbeth’s
hesitancy over committing regicide, ‘We will proceed no further in this business….’ is also evidence of
the fact that he is not an innately ‘evil’ person.
Macbeth also possesses a fatal flaw in his character. His ambition is his tragic flaw which leads him to his
doom. The Witches prophesize that Macbeth will be the Thane of Glamis, and the Thane of Cawdor, and
the ‘king hereafter’. Their prophesies make him ambitious. After the fulfillment of the first prophecy, he
becomes restless for the fulfillment of the final prediction of becoming the king of Scotland. This
prophecy of becoming king gives birth to the evil in his mind and being inspired by Lady Macbeth he
murders Duncun to gain the throne, which is the first and most serious step towards his tragedy.
The suffering the tragic hero arouses pity and fear. But the fall of Macbeth arouses less sympathy than
that of other tragic heroes such as Hamlet, King Lear and Othello, because of his unscrupulous ambition.
Macbeth is different from other tragic heroes. He forfeits our sympathy after the middle of the play. He
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begins as a hero but ends as a villain. From a brave soldier and noble person, Macbeth reaches a state
when he is a soulless person and finally slaughtered like a beast. But when he meets his doom, we feel
that poetic justice has been done.
Critical Analysis of Macbeth
Macbeth is a tragedy that tells the story of a soldier whose overriding ambition and thirst for
power cause him to abandon his morals and bring about the near destruction of the kingdom he
seeks to rule. At first, the conflict is between Macbeth and himself, as he debates whether or not
he will violently seize power, and between Macbeth and his wife, as Lady Macbeth urges her
husband toward a course of action he is hesitant to take.
Once Macbeth stops struggling against his ambition, the conflict shifts. It then primarily exists
between Macbeth and the other characters, in particular Banquo and Macduff, who challenge
his authority. Macbeth is the protagonist in the sense that he is the main focus of the narrative
and that audiences frequently have access to his point of view. However, as he often acts
against his own best interests, as well as the best interests of the other characters and his
country, he is also the antagonist. The characters who oppose Macbeth and eventually defeat
him do so in order to restore order and justice.
The play actually opens with the consequences of someone else’s ambition. In the first scene,
audiences hear about the bloody conflict that resulted from the rebellion led by the Thane of
Cawdor. The rebellion foreshadows the consequences of overreaching one’s role. The conflict
is initiated when Macbeth encounters the witches who prophesize that he will become first the
Thane of Cawdor, and then the King of Scotland. As soon as he learns that their first prophecy
has come true, he is awakened to the possibility of the second also being realized. As Macbeth
marvels to himself, “Two truths are told/As happy prologues to the swelling act/ Of the imperial
theme” (1.3.128-130).
In a crucial turning point in the play, Macbeth is faced with a choice: to take decisive action to
claim the crown as his own, or to simply wait and see what happens. Every choice he makes,
and every thing that happens for the rest of the play stem from his decision here. Macbeth feels
ambivalence, as he wants to be king but also knows that he owes Duncan loyalty both “as his
kinsman and as his subject” (1.7.13).
The tension between duty and ambition sharpens when Lady Macbeth learns of the prophecy
that her husband will become king, and immediately begins strategizing ways to bring about the
fulfillment of the prophecy. Now Macbeth is torn between loyalty to Duncan and loyalty to his
wife, who does not appear to feel any shame, doubt, or remorse about the dark act she is
plotting. She is eager to “pour my spirits in [Macbeth’s] ear/And chastise with the valor of my
tongue/All that impedes [him] from the golden round” (1.5.25-27). The audience has the sense
that Lady Macbeth may have been longing for just such an opportunity where she can put her
intelligence and strategic ability to good use.
Lady Macbeth successfully manipulates her husband into taking action, telling him, “when you
durst do it, then you were a man” (1.7.49). This initial conflict over whether or not he can kill his
king, which exists both between Macbeth and himself and between Macbeth and his wife, is
resolved when Macbeth acts, murdering Duncan and then seizing power after the more obvious
heirs flee in fear of being accused of the crime.
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After the murder, the conflict resides primarily in the opposition between Macbeth and the
individuals who mistrust his power and how he got it. Having damned himself by killing Duncan,
Macbeth will stop at nothing to hold on to his power. At the start of Act 3, the audience learns
that Banquo is suspicious of whether Macbeth may have achieved power through nefarious
means. Perhaps because he knows that Banquo has reason to mistrust him, and certainly
because he fears that Banquo’s heirs are a challenge to his lineage, Macbeth arranges to have
Banquo and his son murdered.
Both Macbeth and his wife have changed: Macbeth, formerly hesitant, is now completely firm
and decisive, and Lady Macbeth, formerly impatient and bloodthirsty, now thinks it would be fine
to leave matters well enough alone. For example, she explicitly tells him that he “must leave
this” (3.2.35), while he explains that “things bad begun make strong themselves by ill” (3.2.55).
The murder of Banquo furthers heightens the conflict. Macbeth is clearly a tyrannical figure, and
the plot will revolve around him being removed from power and punished for his crimes.
The expository speech between Lennox and the lord in Act 3, Scene 6 clarifies that political
loyalties have shifted and that Macbeth is now viewed as a usurper who needs to be deposed.
We see that Macbeth’s rule is disastrous for Scotland as a whole, as Lennox laments the fate of
“this our suffering country/Under a hand accursed” (3.6.49-50). Macbeth’s horrific order of the
murder of Macduff’s wife and children creates a more specific personal conflict within the
broader one; Macduff now has a case for personal vengeance against Macbeth. Spurred by his
rage and grief, Macduff vows to “Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself/Within my sword’s
length set him” (4.3.234-235). Macduff’s declaration of personal enmity against Macbeth sets
the stage for the final conflict between the two, and for Macbeth’s defeat. A positive outcome
becomes impossible for Macbeth as he gradually loses his authority, power, and eventually his
wife.
Ultimately, Macbeth’s overreliance on his belief he is fated to be king leads to his downfall, since
he arrogantly misinterprets the witches’ prophecies, believing that they promise him glory while
in fact, the prophecies predict how he will be defeated. While the audience has long understood
that the witches are untrustworthy and up to no good, Macbeth only realizes this fact when
facing his own death. He laments that the witches “palter with us in a double sense/That keep
the word of promise to our ear/And break it to our hope” (5.8.20-22). Although he blames the
witches, his own ambition is equally to blame. He heard what he wanted to hear and believed
what he wanted to believe from the first moment he met the witches.
Yet Macbeth is not entirely unsympathetic, as he had several powerful forces inciting him to
action, and for a long time truly believed he was following his fate. His death resolves the
political and social conflict, since the legitimate king can now return to power and restore order
to Scotland. The play’s brief falling action allows for the promise of a brighter future under
Malcolm’s new reign.
