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Macbeth summary and Analysis
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Macbeth summary and analysisSummary: Act 1, scene 1
Thunder and lightning crash above a Scottish moor.
Three haggard old women, the witches, appear out of the storm.
In eerie, chanting tones, they make plans to meet again upon the heath, after the battle, to confront Macbeth.
As quickly as they arrive, they disappear.
Summary: Act 1, scene 2
At a military camp near his palace at Forres, King Duncan of Scotland asks a wounded captain for news about the
Scots’ battle with the Irish invaders, who are led by the rebel Macdonwald.
The captain, who was wounded helping Duncan’s son Malcolm escape capture by the Irish, replies that the Scottish
generals Macbeth and Banquo fought with great courage and violence.
The captain then describes for Duncan how Macbeth slew the traitorous Macdonwald.
As the captain is carried off to have his wounds attended to, the thane of Ross, a Scottish nobleman, enters and tells
the king that the traitorous thane of Cawdor has been defeated and the army of Norway repelled.
Duncan decrees that the thane of Cawdor be put to death and that Macbeth, the hero of the victorious army, be given
Cawdor’s title.
Ross leaves to deliver the news to Macbeth.
Summary: Act 1, scene 3
On the heath near the battlefield, thunder rolls and the three witches appear.
One says that she has just come from “[k]illing swine” and another describes the revenge she has planned upon a
sailor whose wife refused to share her chestnuts.
Suddenly a drum beats, and the third witch cries that Macbeth is coming.
Macbeth and Banquo, on their way to the king’s court at Forres, come upon the witches and shrink in horror at the
sight of the old women.
Banquo asks whether they are mortal, noting that they don’t seem to be “inhabitants o’ th’ earth”.
He also wonders whether they are really women, since they seem to have beards like men.
The witches hail Macbeth as thane of Glamis (his original title) and as thane of Cawdor.
Macbeth is baffled by this second title, as he has not yet heard of King Duncan’s decision.
The witches also declare that Macbeth will be king one day.
Stunned and intrigued, Macbeth presses the witches for more information, but they have turned their attention to
Banquo, speaking in yet more riddles.
They call Banquo “lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” and “not so happy, yet much happier”; then they tell him that
he will never be king but that his children will sit upon the throne.
Macbeth implores the witches to explain what they meant by calling him thane of Cawdor, but they vanish into thin
air.
, Our initial impression of Macbeth, based on the captain’s report of his valor and prowess in battle, is immediately
complicated by Macbeth’s obvious fixation upon the witches’ prophecy.
Macbeth is a noble and courageous warrior but his reaction to the witches’ pronouncements emphasizes his great
desire for power and prestige.
Macbeth immediately realizes that the fulfillment of the prophecy may require conspiracy and murder on his part.
He clearly allows himself to consider taking such actions, although he is by no means resolved to do so.
His reaction to the prophecy displays a fundamental confusion and inactivity: instead of resolving to act on the
witches’ claims, or simply dismissing them, Macbeth talks himself into a kind of thoughtful stupor as he tries to work
out the situation for himself. In the following scene, Lady Macbeth will emerge and drive the hesitant Macbeth to
act; she is the will propelling his achievements.
Once Lady Macbeth hears of the witches’ prophecy, Duncan’s life is doomed.
Macbeth contains some of Shakespeare’s most vivid female characters. Lady Macbeth and the three witches are
extremely wicked, but they are also stronger and more imposing than the men around them.
The sinister witches cast the mood for the entire play. Their rhyming incantations stand out eerily amid the blank
verse spoken by the other characters, and their grotesque figures of speech establish a lingering aura.
Whenever they appear, the stage directions deliberately link them to unease and lurking chaos in the natural world
by insisting on “Thunder” or “Thunder and lightning.”
Shakespeare has the witches speak in language of contradiction.
Their famous line “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” is a prominent example , but there are many others, such as their
characterization of Banquo as “lesser than Macbeth, and greater”. Such speech adds to the play’s sense of moral
confusion by implying that nothing is quite what it seems.
Interestingly, Macbeth’s first line in the play is “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. This line echoes the
witches’ words and establishes a connection between them and Macbeth. It also suggests that Macbeth is the focus
of the drama’s moral confusion.
In Inverness, Macbeth’s castle, Lady Macbeth reads to herself a letter she has received from Macbeth.
The letter announces Macbeth’s promotion to the thaneship of Cawdor and details his meeting with the witches.
Lady Macbeth murmurs that she knows Macbeth is ambitious, but fears he is too full of “th’ milk of human
kindness” to take the steps necessary to make himself king. She resolves to convince her husband to do whatever is
required to seize the crown.
A messenger enters and informs Lady Macbeth that the king rides toward the castle, and that Macbeth is on his way
as well. As she awaits her husband’s arrival, she delivers a famous speech in which she begs, “you spirits / That tend
on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty”.
She resolves to put her natural femininity aside so that she can do the bloody deeds necessary to seize the crown.
, Macbeth enters, and he and his wife discuss the king’s forthcoming visit. Macbeth tells his wife that Duncan plans to
depart the next day, but Lady Macbeth declares that the king will never see tomorrow. She tells her husband to have
patience and to leave the plan to her.
Summary: Act 1, scene 6
Duncan, the Scottish lords, and their attendants arrive outside Macbeth’s castle.
Duncan praises the castle’s pleasant environment, and he thanks Lady Macbeth, who has emerged to greet him, for
her hospitality. She replies that it is her duty to be hospitable since she and her husband owe so much to their king.
Duncan then asks to be taken inside to Macbeth, whom he professes to love dearly.
Inside the castle, as oboes play and servants set a table for the evening’s feast, Macbeth paces by himself, pondering
his idea of assassinating Duncan. He says that the deed would be easy if he could be certain that it would not set in
motion a series of terrible consequences.
He declares his willingness to risk eternal damnation but realizes that even on earth, bloody actions “return / To
plague th’inventor”.
He then considers the reasons why he ought not to kill Duncan: Macbeth is Duncan’s kinsman, subject, and host;
moreover, the king is universally admired as a virtuous ruler. Macbeth notes that these circumstances offer him
nothing that he can use to motivate himself.
He faces the fact that there is no reason to kill the king other than his own ambition, which he realizes is an
unreliable guide.
Lady Macbeth enters and tells her husband that the king has dined and that he has been asking for Macbeth.
Macbeth declares that he no longer intends to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth, outraged, calls him a coward and
questions his manhood: “When you durst do it,” she says, “then you were a man”. He asks her what will happen if
they fail; she promises that as long as they are bold, they will be successful.
Then she tells him her plan: while Duncan sleeps, she will give his chamberlains wine to make them drunk, and then
she and Macbeth can slip in and murder Duncan. They will smear the blood of Duncan on the sleeping chamberlains
to cast the guilt upon them.
Astonished at the brilliance and daring of her plan, Macbeth tells his wife that her “undaunted mettle” makes him
hope that she will only give birth to male children. He then agrees to proceed with the murder.
Analysis: Act 1, scenes 5–7
These scenes are dominated by Lady Macbeth, who is probably the most memorable character in the play.
Her violent, blistering soliloquies in Act 1, scenes 5 and 7, testify to her strength of will, which completely eclipses
that of her husband. She is aware of the discrepancy between their respective resolves and understands that she will
have to manipulate her husband into acting on the witches’ prophecy.
Her soliloquy in Act 1, scene 5, begins the play’s exploration of gender roles, particularly of the value and nature of
masculinity. In the soliloquy, she spurns her feminine characteristics, crying out “unsex me here” and wishing that
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