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.......Macbeth takes place in northern Scotland and in England. The scenes in Scotland are
set at or near King Duncan’s castle at Forres, at Macbeth’s castle on Dunsinane Hill in the
county of Inverness, and in countryside locales where three witches meet. A scene is also set
at a castle in England.

Characters 
Protagonist: Macbeth
Antagonists: Psychological and Supernatural Forces, Including the Witches and the Three
Apparitions
Foils of Macbeth: Banquo, Macduff, Malcolm, Lady Macbeth

Climax  
.......The climax of a play or another literary work, such as a short story or a novel, can be
defined as (1) the turning point at which the conflict begins to resolve itself for better or worse,
or as (2) the final and most exciting event in a series of events. The climax
of Macbeth occurs, according to the first definition, when Macbeth murders Duncan and
becomes king. According to the second definition, the climax occurs in the final act when
Macduff corners and kills Macbeth. 
Character List

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 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.
Read an in-depth analysis of Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth -  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.
Read an in-depth analysis of Lady Macbeth.
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.
Read an in-depth analysis of The Three Witches.
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.
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.
Analysis of Major Characters

Macbeth

Because we first hear of Macbeth in the wounded captain’s account of his battlefield valor, our initial impression is of a brave and capable warrior.
This perspective is complicated, however, once we see Macbeth interact with the three witches. We realize that his physical courage is joined by a
consuming ambition and a tendency to self-doubt—the prediction that he will be king brings him joy, but it also creates inner turmoil. These three
attributes—bravery, ambition, and self-doubt—struggle for mastery of Macbeth throughout the play. Shakespeare uses Macbeth to show the terrible
effects that ambition and guilt can have on a man who lacks strength of character. We may classify Macbeth as irrevocably evil, but his weak
character separates him from Shakespeare’s great villains—Iago in Othello, Richard III in Richard III, Edmund in King Lear—who are all strong
enough to conquer guilt and self-doubt. Macbeth, great warrior though he is, is ill equipped for the psychic consequences of crime.

Before he kills Duncan, Macbeth is plagued by worry and almost aborts the crime. It takes Lady Macbeth’s steely sense of purpose to push him into
the deed. After the murder, however, her powerful personality begins to disintegrate, leaving Macbeth increasingly alone. He fluctuates between fits
of fevered action, in which he plots a series of murders to secure his throne, and moments of terrible guilt (as when Banquo’s ghost appears) and
absolute pessimism (after his wife’s death, when he seems to succumb to despair). These fluctuations reflect the tragic tension within Macbeth: he
is at once too ambitious to allow his conscience to stop him from murdering his way to the top and too conscientious to be happy with himself as a
murderer. As things fall apart for him at the end of the play, he seems almost relieved—with the English army at his gates, he can finally return to
life as a warrior, and he displays a kind of reckless bravado as his enemies surround him and drag him down. In part, this stems from his fatal
confidence in the witches’ prophecies, but it also seems to derive from the fact that he has returned to the arena where he has been most successful
and where his internal turmoil need not affect him—namely, the battlefield. Unlike many of Shakespeare’s other tragic heroes, Macbeth never
seems to contemplate suicide: “Why should I play the Roman fool,” he asks, “and die / On mine own sword?” (5.10.1–2). Instead, he goes down
fighting, bringing the play full circle: it begins with Macbeth winning on the battlefield and ends with him dying in combat.

Lady Macbeth

Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. When we first see her, she is already plotting Duncan’s
murder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to
push Macbeth into committing murder. At one point, she wishes that she were not a woman so that she could do it herself. This theme of the
relationship between gender and power is key to Lady Macbeth’s character: her husband implies that she is a masculine soul inhabiting a female
body, which seems to link masculinity to ambition and violence. Shakespeare, however, seems to use her, and the witches, to undercut Macbeth’s
idea that “undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males” (1.7.73–74). These crafty women use female methods of achieving power—that
is, manipulation—to further their supposedly male ambitions. Women, the play implies, can be as ambitious and cruel as men, yet social constraints
deny them the means to pursue these ambitions on their own.

Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections; when he hesitates to murder, she repeatedly
questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit murder to prove himself. Lady Macbeth’s remarkable strength of will persists through the
murder of the king—it is she who steadies her husband’s nerves immediately after the crime has been perpetrated. Afterward, however, she begins
a slow slide into madness—just as ambition affects her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, so does guilt plague her more strongly
afterward. By the close of the play, she has been reduced to sleepwalking through the castle, desperately trying to wash away an invisible
bloodstain. Once the sense of guilt comes home to roost, Lady Macbeth’s sensitivity becomes a weakness, and she is unable to cope. Significantly,
she (apparently) kills herself, signaling her total inability to deal with the legacy of their crimes.

The Three Witches

Throughout the play, the witches—referred to as the “weird sisters” by many of the characters—lurk like dark thoughts and unconscious
temptations to evil. In part, the mischief they cause stems from their supernatural powers, but mainly it is the result of their understanding of the
weaknesses of their specific interlocutors—they play upon Macbeth’s ambition like puppeteers.

The witches’ beards, bizarre potions, and rhymed speech make them seem slightly ridiculous, like caricatures of the supernatural. Shakespeare has
them speak in rhyming couplets throughout (their most famous line is probably “Double, double, toil and trouble, / Fire burn and cauldron bubble”
in 4.1.10–11), which separates them from the other characters, who mostly speak in blank verse. The witches’ words seem almost comical, like
malevolent nursery rhymes. Despite the absurdity of their “eye of newt and toe of frog” recipes, however, they are clearly the most dangerous
characters in the play, being both tremendously powerful and utterly wicked (4.1.14).

The audience is left to ask whether the witches are independent agents toying with human lives, or agents of fate, whose prophecies are only reports
of the inevitable. The witches bear a striking and obviously intentional resemblance to the Fates, female characters in both Norse and Greek
mythology who weave the fabric of human lives and then cut the threads to end them. Some of their prophecies seem self-fulfilling. For example, it
is doubtful that Macbeth would have murdered his king without the push given by the witches’ predictions. In other cases, though, their prophecies
are just remarkably accurate readings of the future—it is hard to see Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane as being self-fulfilling in any way. The
play offers no easy answers. Instead, Shakespeare keeps the witches well outside the limits of human comprehension. They embody an
unreasoning, instinctive evil.

Theme
Ambition

Enlarge image
Perhaps the most obvious subject or theme
inMacbeth is ambition and we see this with both Macbeth
and Lady Macbeth. They are tempted by the idea that
Macbeth will become king - Macbeth is not sure what to
do but his wife is ruthless in getting what she wants - she
views her husband as a coward and appears ready to do
anything. Ambition leads to evil - it makes Macbeth
stronger and more determined, but then destroys his wife
- she goes mad. And ambition eventually kills him as well,
because he becomes a tyrant and so loses the support of
his friends.
The supernatural

Enlarge image
Another major theme is the supernatural - the idea that there are mysterious forces controlling what
is happening in our lives. The very first characters we meet are the three witches, and their
prophecies are what drives the story forward. In Shakespeare's time belief in witchcraft was very
strong and many so-called witches were burnt at the stake. It is not surprising that his audience
would have taken these ideas seriously and felt that Macbeth was somehow possessed. There are lots
of references to this - he is unable to say 'Amen', he has visions, he is disturbed and even thinks no-
one can kill him.

The final battle scene also contains many elements of the supernatural. Macbeth believes he is
invincible because many of the witches' prophecies appear impossible to fulfil - and yet just as the
witches predicted Birnam Wood does indeed move to Dunsinane, and Macbeth is killed by Macduff
because he is not 'of woman born'.
Reality and appearance

Enlarge image
The contrast between what is real and theappearance of something is also used by Shakespeare.
The classic dagger scene, when Macbeth is not sure if he can trust his eyes, is only one of many
references to this theme. For instance, he sees Banquo's ghost at the banquet and Lady Macbeth
imagines blood on her hands.

The contrast between reality and appearance is also shown with all the references
tothoughts, dreams and actions. Banquo talks about the 'cursed thoughts' he has had and his
dreams of the witches. Macbeth talks of the world of thought and dreams and sometimes is stuck
there. For instance, Lady Macbeth is critical of Macbeth's 'foolish thoughts' and talks of him being 'lost'
because of this.

Sleep is another theme associated with reality, because characters view it as vital to life, but like
death or being in another world. Macbeth is told he has murdered sleep and will 'sleep no more' whilst
Lady Macbeth thinks of sleep as death, calling it the sternest 'goodnight'.

Prophecy

Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in motion—namely, the witches’ prophecy that Macbeth will become first thane of Cawdor and then king. The weird
sisters make a number of other prophecies: they tell us that Banquo’s heirs will be kings, that Macbeth should beware Macduff, that Macbeth is safe
till Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, and that no man born of woman can harm Macbeth. Save for the prophecy about Banquo’s heirs, all of these
predictions are fulfilled within the course of the play. Still, it is left deliberately ambiguous whether some of them are self-fulfilling—for example,
whether Macbeth wills himself to be king or is fated to be king. Additionally, as the Birnam Wood and “born of woman” prophecies make clear, the
prophecies must be interpreted as riddles, since they do not always mean what they seem to mean.
Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Blood

Blood is everywhere in Macbeth, beginning with the opening battle between the Scots and the Norwegian invaders, which is described in harrowing
terms by the wounded captain in Act 1, scene 2. Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their murderous journey, blood comes to
symbolize their guilt, and they begin to feel that their crimes have stained them in a way that cannot be washed clean. “Will all great Neptune’s
ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” Macbeth cries after he has killed Duncan, even as his wife scolds him and says that a little water
will do the job (2.2.58–59). Later, though, she comes to share his horrified sense of being stained: “Out, damned spot; out, I say . . . who would
have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” she asks as she wanders through the halls of their castle near the close of the play
(5.1.30–34). Blood symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the consciences of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, one that hounds
them to their graves.
 The Weather

As in other Shakespearean tragedies, Macbeth’s grotesque murder spree is accompanied by a number of unnatural occurrences in the natural realm.
From the thunder and lightning that accompany the witches’ appearances to the terrible storms that rage on the night of Duncan’s murder, these
violations of the natural order reflect corruption in the moral and political orders.

Shakespeare's technique
We can also deal with language in Macbeth by looking at the techniques Shakespeare used. Some of
these techniques (and names) might seem difficult at first. If that's the case, just think about what
the play would sound like if the technique was not used. For instance, when we meet the witches at
the start, imagine that they said:

"Thing's aren't what they seem, you know"

Well, yes, it is easy to understand but it is not something unusual or interesting, and it doesn't seem
to be something a witch might want to say anyway. So instead, they say:

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair"

Suddenly it's not so obvious what Shakespeare is getting at. This is also a lot more complex and
interesting - opposing ideas are put together and the actual meaning seems to be a paradox - how
can something fair be foul, and something foul be fair? Let's have a look at this next.

Imagery
 Imagery is used a lot in Macbeth. This is when strong pictures or ideas are created in our
minds. For instance, the play has lots of references to darkness, to sleep, to disease and even to
blood. Imagery often describes one thing in terms of another, and there are three main ways this
happens:
 Metaphors is when one thing is called something else. For instance, when Macbeth wants to
defend his lands against others, he uses metaphors from medicine - he wants to find the 'disease' in
Scotland, to restore it to 'health' and to use a 'drug' against others.
 Personification is where something is described as if it is human, so the"Dark night
strangles the travelling lamp".
 Similes is when a direct comparison is made (with 'as', 'than' or 'like'), so Banquo says that
the witches "look not like the inhabitants o'the'earth" or Macbeth says something "moves like a
ghost".

MAJOR CONFLICTS   · The struggle within Macbeth between his ambition and his sense of right and wrong; the struggle between the
murderous evil represented by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the best interests of the nation, represented by Malcolm and Macduff
RISING ACTION  · Macbeth and Banquo’s encounter with the witches initiates both conflicts; Lady Macbeth’s speeches goad
Macbeth into murdering Duncan and seizing the crown.
CLIMAX · Macbeth’s murder of Duncan in Act 2 represents the point of no return, after which Macbeth is forced to continue
butchering his subjects to avoid the consequences of his crime.
FALLING ACTION  · Macbeth’s increasingly brutal murders (of Duncan’s servants, Banquo, Lady Macduff and her son); Macbeth’s
second meeting with the witches; Macbeth’s final confrontation with Macduff and the opposing armies
THEMES  · The corrupting nature of unchecked ambition; the relationship between cruelty and masculinity; the difference between
kingship and tyranny
MOTIFS  · The supernatural, hallucinations, violence, prophecy
SYMBOLS  · Blood; the dagger that Macbeth sees just before he kills Duncan in Act 2; the weather
FORESHADOWING · The bloody battle in Act 1 foreshadows the bloody murders later on; when Macbeth thinks he hears a voice
while killing Duncan, it foreshadows the insomnia that plagues Macbeth and his wife; Macduff’s suspicions of Macbeth after Duncan’s
murder foreshadow his later opposition to Macbeth; all of the witches’ prophecies foreshadow later events.

Major Themes

Prophecy
The plot of Macbeth is set in motion ostensibly by the prophecy of the three witches. The prophecy
fans the flames of ambition within Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, serving as the primary impetus for the
couple to plot the death of Duncan--and subsequently Banquo. But one also wonders: Would Macbeth
have committed such heinous crimes if not for the prophecy? What if he had ignored the witches’
statements? Such speculation, however interesting, ultimately appears futile, since the prophecy itself
is self-fulfilling. The witches know Macbeth’s tragic flaw: given the irresistible temptation to become
King, he will choose to commit murder even though he could simply discard their words. As it turns
out, the prophecies are not only fated but fatal, as Macbeth's confidence in the witches leads him to
fight a rash battle in the final act.

Guilt and Remorse

Some of the most famous and poetic lines from Macbeth are expressions of remorse. “Will all great
Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” exclaims Macbeth after he stabs Duncan (II
ii 58-59). Similarly, Lady Macbeth is plagued by a “spot” that she cannot remove from her hand: “Out,
damned spot! Out, I say. . . What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” (V I 30-37). At first physical
remainders of a regrettable crime, the royal blood leaves permanent marks on the psyche of the
couple, forever staining them with guilt and remorse. The different ways in which the Macbeths cope
with their crimes show how their characters develop: whereas Lady Macbeth is initially the one
without scruples, urging Macbeth to take action, it is an overpowering sense of guilt and remorse that
drives the Lady to her untimely death. Macbeth, on the other hand, seems to overcome the guilt that
plagues him early on in the play.

Ghosts and Visions

Just as an overwhelming guilty conscience drives Lady Macbeth mad, so too does Macbeth’s “heat-
oppressed” brain project the vision of a dagger before he murders Duncan (II i 39). In what concerns
ghosts and visions, the relation of the natural to the supernatural in Macbeth is unclear. The three
apparitions that the witches summon, for example, are usually taken to be “real”—even if only as
supernatural occurrences. But the matter is less clear when it comes to Banquo’ ghost. Macbeth is the
only one who sees the ghost in a crowded room; is this yet another projection of his feverish mind? Or
is it really, so to speak, a supernatural occurrence? Such ambiguities contribute to the eerie mood and
sense of uncanniness that pervade the play, from the very opening scene with the three bearded
witches.

The Natural/Supernatural
If the witches’ prophecy is understood to be imposing a supernatural order on the natural order of
things, the natural order can also be understood as responding with tempestuous signs. Following
Duncan’s death, Lennox describes the “unruly” night in some detail. Similarly, Ross notes that “the
heavens, as troubled with man’s act, / Threatens his bloody stage” (II iv 5-6). In the same scene, the
Old Man and Ross both agree that they saw horses eat each other. Even the events leading to the
conclusion of the play can be understood as a negotiation of the natural and supernatural. Whereas
Macbeth believes that he will live the “lease of nature”—since Birnam Wood cannot possible come to
Dunsinane Hill—the forest is literally uprooted by the English army in accordance with the prophecy.
The dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural forms a backdrop that suggests the epic
proportions of the struggle over the Scottish crown.

Dichotomy and Equivocation

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair / Hover through the fog and filthy air” (I i 10-11). The first scene of the
first act ends with these words of the witches, which Macbeth echoes in his first line: “So foul and fair
a day I have not seen” (I iii 36). In a similar fashion, many scenes conclude with lines of dichotomy or
equivocation: “Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or hell” (II i64);
“God’s benison go with you, and with those/ That would make good of bad, and friends of foes” (II iv
41-42). Such lines evoke an air of deep uncertainty: while polarities are reversed and established
values are overturned, it is entirely unclear as to whether the dichotomous clarity of “heaven or hell”
trumps the equivocatory fogginess of “fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Thus, for Macbeth, this translates
into an uncertainty as to whether the prophecies are believable. It seems that Birnam Wood will either
come to Dunsinane Hill (a supernatural event) or it will not (a natural event); but the actual even
turns out to be neither here nor there, as the Wood figuratively comes to Dunsinane.

Ambition and Temptation

Ambition and temptation both play a key factor in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s decision to kill
Duncan. Macbeth possesses enough self-awareness to realize the dangers of overzealous ambition: “I
have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself / And
falls on th’other” (25-28). And yet, the temptation to carry out the witches' prophecy is ultimately too
strong for Macbeth to curb his ambition. In Lady Macbeth’s lexicon, incidentally, “hope” is also another
word for “ambition” and perhaps “temptation.” As Macbeth expresses his doubts about killing Duncan,
she demands: “Was the hope drunk / Wherein you dressed yourself” (35-36)? Ironically, Lady
Macbeth must herself rely on intoxicants to “make [her] bold” before executing her ambitious and
murderous plans (II ii 1). Once the intoxication wears off, Lady Macbeth finds that she is unable to
cope with the consequences of her own "hope." Ultimately, ambition and temptation prove fatal for
both the Macbeths.

Salvation and Damnation

As a morality tale of sorts, Macbeth has as its near contemporary Christopher Marlowe’sDr. Faustus.
Like Dr. Faustus, Macbeth recognizes the damning consequences of his crime:
. . . Besides, this Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against 
The deep damnation of his taking-off.” (I vii 16-20)

And yet Macbeth carries out the crime, thus precipitating his own descent into hell. Later in the play,
appropriately, Macduff calls Macbeth by the name of “hell-hound” (V x 3). Indeed, the story of
Macbeth is that of a man who acquiesces in his damnation—in part because he cannot utter words
that may attenuate his crime. As Duncan’s guards pray “God bless us” on their deathbed, Macbeth
cannot say one “Amen” (II ii 26-27). His fate is thus sealed entirely by his own hands.
Study Questions & Essay Topics

Study Questions

1. Characterize the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. If the main theme of Macbeth is ambition, whose ambition is the driving
force of the play—Macbeth’s, Lady Macbeth’s, or both?
Answer for Study Question 1 >>

The Macbeths’ marriage, like the couple themselves, is atypical, particularly by the standards of its time. Yet despite their odd power dynamic, the
two of them seem surprisingly attached to one another, particularly compared to other married couples in Shakespeare’s plays, in which romantic
felicity appears primarily during courtship and marriages tend to be troubled. Macbeth offers an exception to this rule, as Macbeth and his wife are
partners in the truest sense of the word. Of course, the irony of their “happy” marriage is clear—they are united by their crimes, their mutual
madness, and their mounting alienation from the rest of humanity.

Though Macbeth is a brave general and a powerful lord, his wife is far from subordinate to his will. Indeed, she often seems to control him, either
by crafty manipulation or by direct order. And it is Lady Macbeth’s deep-seated ambition, rather than her husband’s, that ultimately propels the plot
of the play by goading Macbeth to murder Duncan. Macbeth does not need any help coming up with the idea of murdering Duncan, but it seems
unlikely that he would have committed the murder without his wife’s powerful taunts and persuasions.

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2. One of the important themes in Macbeth is the idea of political legitimacy, of the moral authority that some kings possess and others lack. With
particular attention to Malcolm’s questioning of Macduff in Act 4, scene 3, try to define some of the characteristics that grant or invalidate the
moral legitimacy of absolute power. What makes Duncan a good king? What makes Macbeth a tyrant?
Answer for Study Question 2 >>

After Duncan’s death, the nobles of Scotland begin to grumble among themselves about what they perceive as Macbeth’s tyrannical behavior.
When Macduff meets Malcolm in England, Malcolm pretends that he would make an even worse king than Macbeth in order to test Macduff’s
loyalty to Scotland. The bad qualities he claims to possess include lust, greed, and a chaotic and violent temperament. These qualities all seem
characteristic of Macbeth, whereas Duncan’s universally lauded reign was marked by the king’s kindness, generosity, and stabilizing presence. The
king must be able to keep order and should reward his subjects according to their merits. For example, Duncan makes Macbeth thane of Cawdor
after Macbeth’s victory over the invaders. Perhaps the most important quality of a true king to emerge in Malcolm’s conversation with Macduff is
loyalty to Scotland and its people above oneself. Macbeth wishes to be king to gratify his own desires, while Duncan and Malcolm wear the crown
out of love for their nation.

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3. An important theme in Macbeth is the relationship between gender and power, particularly Shakespeare’s exploration of the values that make up
the idea of masculinity. What are these values, and how do various characters embody them? How does Shakespeare subvert his characters’
perception of gender roles?
Answer for Study Question 3 >>

Manhood, for most of the characters in Macbeth, is tied to ideals of strength, power, physical courage, and force of will; it is rarely tied to ideals of
intelligence or moral fortitude. At several points in the play, the characters goad one another into action by questioning each other’s manhood. Most
significantly, Lady Macbeth emasculates her husband repeatedly, knowing that in his desperation to prove his manhood he will perform the acts she
wishes him to perform. Macbeth echoes Lady Macbeth’s words when he questions the manhood of the murderers he has hired to kill Banquo, and
after Macduff’s wife and children are killed, Malcolm urges Macduff to take the news with manly reserve and to devote himself to the destruction
of Macbeth, his family’s murderer. Ultimately, there is a strong suggestion that manhood is tied to cruelty and violence: note Lady Macbeth’s
speech in Act 1, scene 5, when she asks to be “unsexed” so that she can help her husband commit murder. Yet, at the same time, the audience is
clearly meant to realize that women provide the push that sets the bloody action of the play in motion. Macduff, too, suggests that the equation of
masculinity with cruelty is not quite correct. His comments show that he believes emotion and reflection are also important attributes of the true
man.

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