73 pages • 2 hours read
William ShakespeareMacbeth
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1623A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Act IChapter Summaries & Analyses
Scenes 1-4 Summary
Three witches gather as a storm rages. They arrange their next gathering: When the current battle is over, they will meet with Macbeth. They exit the stage.
Duncan, King of Scotland, enters with his sons, Malcolm and Donalbain. They are near Duncan’s military camp in Forres and, when a wounded captain passes, Duncan asks for news about the recent battle between Scotland and the invading Irish army, led by a rebel named Macdonwald. The captain says that the two sides fought like “two spent swimmers that do cling together” (1.2.8) but, thanks to the bravery of General Macbeth, the Scottish army prevailed. Macbeth has placed the rebel’s head on a spike above the castle walls. A second army appeared just as the Irish were defeated—a surprise Norwegian force launching a fresh attack when the Scots were exhausted. However, the Scottish army fought back and defeated this second army. The captain struggles with his wounds and leaves to see a doctor. The Thane of Ross arrives and tells Duncan that the Norwegians came from in Fife, assisted by the turncoat Thane of Cawdor. Duncan sentences the Thane of Cawdor to death for treason, granting his title to Macbeth.
The three witches meet on the battlefield and discuss the many terrible events they have orchestrated. A drum sounds to announce Macbeth’s arrival. Macbeth and Banquo enter, discussing the battle. They are surprised by the witches, who hail Macbeth by his current title, Thane of Glamis, and then by the titles the Thane of Cawdor and King. They tell Banquo that he is “lesser than Macbeth and greater” (1.3.66) because—while Banquo will not himself be king—his descendants will take the throne. Macbeth demands more information, but the witches vanish. Stunned, Macbeth and Banquo discuss the prophecy. Macbeth fixates on the idea that Banquo’s children will one day be kings, while Banquo points out that Macbeth himself is also destined to take the throne. They are interrupted by Ross and Angus, who arrive to tell Macbeth that he has been made Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is amazed—the first part of the witches’ prophecy has come true. He mentions this to Banquo, who warns him that the devil will often tell people half-truths to convince them of a greater lie. To the audience, however, Macbeth begins to wonder whether he might indeed one day be king and wonders what he has to do to take the throne. As the group leaves for Forres, Macbeth asks Banquo to talk about the issue in private.
Malcolm informs his father Duncan that the previous Thane of Cawdor has been executed, dying a noble death after confessing and repenting his treasonous actions. Ross and Angus lead Macbeth and Banquo into the court, whereupon Duncan lavishes them with praise for their decisive victory. Both men proclaim their loyalty to the King, who designates Malcolm as his heir to the throne. While Macbeth outwardly praises the decision, he notes to himself that he now has a new person standing between him and the crown. Macbeth invites Duncan to victory feast at his castle that evening. Macbeth departs first, hoping to tell his wife about what has happened and warn her about the King’s arrival. As he leaves, Duncan and Banquo hail Macbeth as “a peerless kinsman” (1.4.60).
Scenes 5-7 Summary
At home in the family’s castle in Inverness, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband. The letter announces that he has been made Thane of Cawdor and provides details of the witches’ prophecy. Though she has always known that her husband was ambitious, Lady Macbeth has long suspected that her husband is not ruthless enough to ascend to the throne. She believes that it is her duty to convince him to do what is necessary to be crowned king. A messenger informs Lady Macbeth that Duncan and Macbeth are both on their way. Speaking to herself, Lady Macbeth asks to be imbued with the “direst cruelty” (1.5.41) in order to help her husband. She wills herself to put aside her feminine qualities to commit whatever violence is necessary.
When Macbeth enters, they discuss Duncan’s imminent arrival. Duncan will only stay one night, so Lady Macbeth convinces her husband that he must not be allowed to depart. She assures a hesitant Macbeth that she has a plan.
The royal court arrives at Macbeth’s castle. As they enter, Duncan praises Macbeth’s home and thanks Lady Macbeth for her hospitality. She greets him, assuring Duncan that it is her duty to make him feel at home, especially as she and her husband owe so much to the king. Duncan asks to meet with Macbeth.
The castle prepares for the evening’s feast. Macbeth is alone, ruminating on the assassination. It would be easy to kill Duncan, if he could be certain that doing so would not launch him down a terrible path. Macbeth is not troubled by the prospect of going to hell, but is aware that dreadful deeds have habit of plaguing those who commit them. He lists the reasons he should not kill Duncan: They are cousins; Duncan is Macbeth’s king thus owed loyalty; Macbeth must protect Duncan’s safety according to the law of guest right; and Duncan is admired throughout Scotland as a good king. Struggling to motivate himself, he realizes that the only motivation he truly understands is his ambition to be king.
Lady Macbeth arrives to update her husband: Duncan has dined and wishes to speak to Macbeth. She listens as her husband announces that he is no longer wants to murder Duncan; Lady Macbeth is furious, denouncing her husband as a coward. He makes his case, asking what will happen if they fail. But Lady Macbeth assures her husband that this will not happen, so long as they remain bold. Her plan is to get Duncan’s chamberlains drunk and, while he sleeps, Macbeth will sneak into Duncan’s bedroom and kill the king. Then, they will frame Duncan’s chamberlains for the murder. Macbeth is astonished by the steely brilliance of his wife’s plan and hopes that she will give him plenty of male heirs. Macbeth agrees to murder Duncan.
Act I Analysis
From the very first stage directions, Shakespeare sets the tone of the play as being dark, pessimistic, and brooding. Opening with a storm above a coven of witches and then moving quickly to a bloodied battlefield, the opening scenes of the play are replete with violence, both natural and manmade. By moving from one gruesome scene to another, the play illustrates the manner in which bloodshed begets bloodshed, foreshadowing the downfall of Macbeth after he commits to regicide. This early violence lays the foundation for the narrative premise of the play: Macbeth’s corrosive and destructive “vaulting ambition” (1.7.27) takes over his life when he fixates on the image of himself on the throne of Scotland, metastasizing into a corrupting, destructive cancer, and leading to a ruinous end.
Before the audience even meets Macbeth, he is established as a brave and cunning general and is worthy of the respect of his king. The reverence and respect with which the characters treat Macbeth is passed along to the audience, establishing an idea of Macbeth that is almost immediately contradicted. When Macbeth meets the witches, his interest in their prophecy juxtaposes his reputation a brave warrior and a loyal subject with his conniving, ambitious side. The witches’ prophecy almost seems to simply confirm what he has long believed and long desired. Lady Macbeth exacerbates this side of Macbeth’s character, dismissing his hesitancy and demanding that he move forward with their plan.
The play examines gender frequently through its female characters. Lady Macbeth and the witches areas villainous but also strong. Their guidance and force of will lure the male characters astray. There is a sense of the other about the women in the play. The witches are markedly different: They vanish into thin air (as noted in the stage directions), have facial features that make them hard to read as women, and speak in rhyming hexameter while the other characters speak almost exclusively in blank verse. Their stage entrances are marked by natural violence of storms.
Lady Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most notorious female characters, stands apart in her command of language, delivering two famous soliloquies in the first Act. She dominates her husband, and is self-aware enough to know that she will have to manipulate Macbeth into killing Duncan. She succeeds because of her rhetorical talent—she plays on his sense of himself as brave and committed, shaming him into ignoring his scruples. Like the witches, Lady Macbeth straddles the traditional divide between genders. During one of her soliloquies, Lady Macbeth hopes that she can “unsex” (1.5.31) herself, willing herself to become genderless to achieve her goals.
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