Drama Macbeth Full Play Summary & Analysis by William Shakespeare
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Summary
The play begins with the brief appearance of a trio of witches and then moves to a military camp, where the Scottish King Duncan hears the news that his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated two separate invading armies—one from Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonwald, and one from Norway. Following their pitched battle with these enemy forces, Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches as they cross a moor. The witches prophesy that Macbeth will be made thane (a rank of Scottish nobility) of Cawdor and eventually King of Scotland. They also prophesy that Macbeth’s companion, Banquo, will beget a line of Scottish kings, although Banquo will never be king himself.
The witches vanish, and Macbeth and Banquo treat their prophecies skeptically until some of King Duncan’s men come to thank the two generals for their victories in battle and to tell Macbeth that he has indeed been named thane of Cawdor. The previous thane betrayed Scotland by fighting for the Norwegians and Duncan has condemned him to death. Macbeth is intrigued by the possibility that the remainder of the witches’ prophecy—that he will be crowned king—might be true, but he is uncertain what to expect. He visits with King Duncan, and they plan to dine together at Inverness, Macbeth’s castle, that night. Macbeth writes ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her all that has happened.
Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband’s uncertainty. She desires the kingship for him and wants him to murder Duncan in order to obtain it. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband’s objections and persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan’s two chamberlains drunk so they will black out; the next morning they will blame the murder on the chamberlains, who will be defenseless, as they will remember nothing. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a vision of a bloody dagger. When Duncan’s death is discovered the next morning, Macbeth kills the chamberlains—ostensibly out of rage at their crime—and easily assumes the kingship. Duncan’s sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well.
Fearful of the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s heirs will seize the throne, Macbeth hires a group of murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. They ambush Banquo on his way to a royal feast, but they fail to kill Fleance, who escapes into the night. Macbeth becomes furious: as long as Fleance is alive, he fears that his power remains insecure. At the feast that night, Banquo’s ghost visits Macbeth. When he sees the ghost, Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, who include most of the great Scottish nobility. Lady Macbeth tries to neutralize the damage, but Macbeth’s kingship incites increasing resistance from his nobles and subjects.
Frightened, Macbeth goes to visit the witches in their cavern. There, they show him a sequence of demons and spirits who present him with further prophecies: he must beware of Macduff, a Scottish nobleman who opposed Macbeth’s accession to the throne; he is incapable of being harmed by any man born of woman; and he will be safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Castle. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure, because he knows that all men are born of women and that forests cannot move. When he learns that Macduff has fled to England to join Malcolm, Macbeth orders that Macduff’s castle be seized and, most cruelly, that Lady Macduff and her children be murdered.
When news of his family’s execution reaches Macduff in England, he is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan’s son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to Scotland to challenge Macbeth’s forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth’s tyrannical and murderous behavior. Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, becomes plagued with fits of sleepwalking in which she bemoans what she believes to be bloodstains on her hands. Before Macbeth’s opponents arrive, Macbeth receives news that she has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair. Nevertheless, he awaits the English and fortifies Dunsinane, to which he seems to have withdrawn in order to defend himself, certain that the witches’ prophecies guarantee his invincibility. He is struck numb with fear, however, when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood. Birnam Wood is indeed coming to Dunsinane, fulfilling half of the witches’ prophecy.
In the battle, Macbeth hews violently, but the English forces gradually overwhelm his army and castle. On the battlefield, Macbeth encounters the vengeful Macduff, who declares that he was not “of woman born” but was instead “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb (what we now call birth by cesarean section). Though he realizes that he is doomed, Macbeth continues to fight until Macduff kills and beheads him. Malcolm, now the King of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country and invites all to see him crowned at Scone.
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.
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.
Drama Macbeth Full Play Summary & Analysis by William Shakespeare