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Macbeth
Additional Characters
• Donaldbain – Duncan's younger son
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• Ross, Lennox, Angus, Menteith, Caithness – Scottish Thanes
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• Young Siward – Siward's Son
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• Captain – in the Scottish army
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• Gentlewoman – Lady Macbeth's caretaker
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Act 1:
• Play opens amongst thunder and lightning – three witches decide that their next meeting will be
with Macbeth
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• Macbeth is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess
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• The Witches tell Macbeth that he will be Thane of Cawdor and then King
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• When Banquo asks of his fortunes the witches reply paradoxically, saying he will be less than
Macbeth but happier, less successful, but more
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• While the two wonder at these prophecies, the Witches disappear and another Thane, Ross,
arrives and informs Macbeth that he is now Thane of Cawdor
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• King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo and declares that he will spend the
night at Macbeth's castle in Inverness; he also names his son Malcolm as his heir
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• Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband's uncertainty and wishes him to murder Duncan in
order to obtain kingship
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• He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan's two chamberlains drunk so that they will black out;
the next morning they will blame the chamberlains for the murder
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Scene 1:
• Thunder and Lightning (stage directions) – associated with evil
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” – Trochaic tetrameter,
rhyming couplets sounds like incanting – rhythm-like chanting
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Equivocal – the use of
ambiguous/evasive language
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– Every witch had an animal servant
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• Witches: Fair is foul, and foul is fair – equivocal language used by the witches
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• Witches: hover through the fog and filthy air – black and hostile weather conditions, darkness
and unhealthiness, Gothic, black and remote setting
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Scene 2:
• Alarum within (stage directions) – contrasts to scene 1, which opened with thunder and
lightning suggesting evil
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• Duncan: What bloody man is that? – Highlights key theme of brutality and bloodshed as
Duncan is unable to recognise his captain
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• Captain: with his brandished steel, Which smoked with bloody execution - celebration of
bloodshed
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• Macbeth: the mind I sway by and the heart I bear shall never sag with doubt nor shake with
fear - Believing himself protected by the witches' prophecies
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Macbeth is saying that
he has lost his reason for living
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It is very clear that Macbeth has gained nothing by
obtaining the crown
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We are led to
conclude that the murders have not brought him or Lady Macbeth any happiness
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• Macbeth: put mine armour on; give me my staff – recognises he is not entirely invulnerable
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Scene 5:
• Macbeth: our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn – confident that the castle is strong –
in a state of security – Hecate – security is mortal’s chiefest enemy
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I have supped full with horrors; direness familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
cannot once start me – Macbeth describing how he is no longer horrified by evil as he has
become accustomed to it
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This could either be Macbeth expressing regret or
him being boastful
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• Macebth: she should have died hereafter – Macbeth’s response to Lady Macbeth’s death
illustrates Macbeth's callous lack of concern for Lady Macbeth
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Nihilistic despair
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• Macbeth: and all our yesterdays having lighted fools the way to dusty death – life is just a
journey to death
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Life is like a poor actor who struts and worries for his time on the stage and is gone
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Macbeth is feeling sorry for himself and
sees life as nothing more than a poor player
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The last two words 'signifying nothing' are
given their own line in the text, emphasising Macbeth's cynicism
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The
reference to life as being a tale 'told' by somebody refers to the idea of a predetermined fate;
storyteller may be representative of fate
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Also could be considered as metafictional and referring to the fate
Shakespeare has created for Macbeth
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Scene 7:
• Macbeth: they have tied me to a stake I cannot fly, but bear-like I must fight the cause - This
expression means that Macbeth realizes that this has happened now
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This line portrays Macbeth as a brave warrior because he's
going to fight even though he knows he will die
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• Macbeth: swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, brandished by man that’s of a woman
born – further evidence of Macbeth’s overconfidence
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Scene 8:
• Macbeth: why should I play the roman fool and die on mine own sword? – Macbeth sees no
need to commit suicide
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• Macduff: thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out – Macbeth is too evil for words
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• Macduff: Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped – confirms witches

prophecies and reveals their equivocal nature
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• Macbeth: palter with us in a double sense - Macbeth realises that the witches have manipulated
him with equivocal language
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• Macbeth: I will try the last - Macbeth resolves to test the last prophecy ("beware Macduff")
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• Macduff: usurper’s cursed head - Macduff has decapitated Macbeth
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• Malcolm: this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen - Malcolm denounces Macbeth and Lady
Macbeth

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