Themes:

Ambition/Power
Beginning:
Act 1 Scene 5 “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be / What thous art promised;'”

Act 1 Scene 7 “I have no spur / To prick the sies of my intent but only / Vaulting ambition
which o’erleaps itself” | Metaphor, personification of ambition

Middle:

Macbeth remembers what the Witches said about Banquo's children becoming kings of
Scotland. He is worried that Banquo's son will take over from him. Even though Banquo is
his best friend, he pays some thugs to murder him and his son.
“We have scorched the snake, not killed it.” → before he kills the Banquo → macbeth quest
of ambition is still not complete → he hasn’t take the prophecies steps to earning king

End:
By giving in to the temptation that the witches offer, he loses almost every aspect of his true
humanity.
“Yet I will try the last”

Guilt
Beginning:
To comfort her husband, Lady Macbeth says in act 2, scene 2 “theses deed must not be
though / After these was: so, it will make us mad”. By saying this she believes that you
shouldn't feel guilty about doing evil, you should just get it done and move on because
thinking about it will only drive you crazy
Foreshadows the outcome of the play
Seperation from God: “I could not say Amen”
Hallucinations: Dagger and Banquo’s ghost

Middle:
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth cannot get a good nights sleep after murdering the King
“Glamis hath murdered sleep”
“Sllep no more! MAcbeth doth Murder Sleep”
Extended metaphor of not being able to wipe the blood off their hands
These deeds must not be thought / After these ways: so, it will make us mad.’

End:
As represented through the monlouge of Lady Macbeth’s sleep talking with doctor in Act 5
Lady Macbeth has sleepless nights reimagining the killing of Duncan
Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Betrayal/ Deceit
Beginning
Appearance can’t be trusted. This leads to an atmosphere of confusion, deception and
betrayal. The witches introduce the ambiguity and confusion at the beginning of the play ‘fair
is foul and foul is fair’.
Act 1, Sc4, (Duncan speaking about Macbeth’s predecessor) (Dramatic Irony)
Macbeth knows he should not murder King Duncan. He acknoweledges that Duncan is his
relative, and it is wrong to kill your relatives! Secondly, he is Duncan’s host, and the duty of a
host is to protect those within your house. Thirdly he is a great King and does not deserve to
die. Yet Macbeth proceeds to kill his King!
Act 1, Sc5, L63-4 Look like th' innocent flower, But be the serpent under ’t. (Lady M to MacB)

Middle
“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” (metaphor) (Act 2, Sc3)
"Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done 't."

End
The ruthless killing in the ending scenes of the play represetn the key theme of betrayal as
Macbeth goes against his moral nobility shown at the beginning of play
Macbeth betrays his own nature through the butchery of Macduff's family;

The Supernatural
- Good vs Evil - the withces introduce this moral ambiguity at the beginning of
the play
- The withces represent evil forces, and through them the audience
investigates the evil in human nature.
- Darkness, night, disruption in nature and madness are all indicatos of evil
forces
- The light daytime and ‘medicine’ or cure (by Malcolm and MacDuff at the end
of the play) represent good
- Macbeth has to choose between good and evil, with the character of Banquo
contrasting Macbeth’s character
Beginning
‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair

Hover through the fog and filthy air.’

Stars, hide your fires;

“Let not light see my black and deep desires.

The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.’

Glossary:
Peripeteia: a sudden reversal if fortune or change in circumstances
Nemesis - a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent
Anagnorisis: the point in the play, novel etc, in which a principal character recognises or
discovers another character’s true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances
Hamartia - fatal flaw: ‘to err’ or to exhibit the fact that you are a flawed human
Paradox: a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated
may prove to be well founded or true.
Hubris: Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance
Equivocation: the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing
oneself. A statement that lends itself to multiple interpretations often with the deliberate intent to
deceive; prevarication.
Layer 1 - preparation for royal visit
Layer 2 - preparation for murder
Layer 3 - Killing with two knives
Layer 4 - Witches prophecy ‘double, double toil and trouble
Dramatic Irony: Occurs when the audience knows something that the character in the play
does not
- “There is no art to finding a man’s construction in the face, he was a gentleman on
whom I built an absolute’ (Duncan speaking about the previous than of Cawdor who
betrayed him - just as the new thane of Cawdor, Macbeth who is planning also to
betray Duncan, enters.)
Characters:
Macbeth:
- Protagonist within the play
- Represented as noble and respected character at the beginning, however his greed
and ambitions overrule him to become King of Scotland
- He is unable to process his villainous actions and struggles to deal with the killing of
his king
Lady Macbeth:
- Never seen on stage with Macbeth again after the Banquet scene
- Constantly reliving the events of the killing of Duncan throughout her sleep
- Dies through suicide in act 5 Scene 5
-
The Three Witches
- Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths of Banquo and
his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality.
Hectate:
- The Godess of the witchcraft, who helps the three witches work their mischief on
Macbeth.

Banquo (Killed in act 3):

- 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.
- Banquo’s ghost haunts Macbet which also reminds Macbeth that he did not emulate
Banquo’s reaction to the witches’ prophecy.
- The thugs Macbeth hired brutally stab and kill Banquo, but his son, Fleance escapes
and runs away to England
Fleance (Son of Banquo)
- 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.

King Duncan (Killed in Act 2):

- 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.
Malcolm (Son of Duncan) :
- Helps Macduff
- The son of Duncan, whose restoration to the throne signals Scotland’s return to order
following Macbeth’s reign of terror.
- He is declared as Duncan's heir at the end of the opening battle, an event that
Macbeth sees as an obstacle to his ambitions.
 - Upon Duncan's death, Malcolm and Donalbain flee from Scotland, fearing that they
will suffer a fate similar to Duncan.
- 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.
Donalbain
- Duncan’s son and Malcolm’s younger brother

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.
Lady Macduff (Dies in act 4 along with her son
- 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.
- She and her son are killed by Macbeth in act 4

Young Siward (Dies in act 5)

- In this sense, the battle between Macbeth and Young Siward serves two purposes.
- Young Siward is offering himself as champion of Christian good against the forces of
darkness, and for Macbeth, his triumph over the boy is proof of his (mistaken) belief
that no human can kill him.

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.