Characters

• Tragic hero

  • He displays heroic characteristics
  • He has a fatal character flaw (hamartia): his ambition
  • Despite his hamartia, the audience does feel some sympathy for him
  • He is doomed to die at the end of the play
• Macbeth at the beginning of the play

  • Brave: he is shown to be a fearless warrior (an "eagle" and a "lion" in battle)
  • Noble: it is reported that he has killed a traitor in battle, showing his loyalty to King Duncan and Scotland in general
  • Ambitious: unlike his comrade Banquo, he is easily seduced by the witches' dangerous prophecies
  • Conscientious: he questions the morality of committing regicide, which leads Lady Macbeth to challenge his courage and manliness
• For Macbeth

  • There is a tension between the heroic and loyal aspect of his character and the ambition
  • This results in him questioning his actions repeatedly, but ultimately succumbing to his darker desires
• Macbeth as the play progresses

  • Cruel: he murders his best friend, Banquo, and the wife and children of Macduff
  • Paranoid: he begins to suspect even innocent people are threats to his power, and even stops sharing things with Lady Macbeth ("full of scorpions is my mind")
  • Guilty: his hallucinations represent his increasing feelings of guilt for the regicide and murder of Banquo
  • Masculine: he becomes the cruel, violent man that Lady Macbeth accuses him of not being, and becomes the dominant force in their relationship
  • Nihilistic: ultimately, he questions the pointlessness of life. For a Christian, Jacobean audience, this would be seen as disturbing
• Despite his hamartia, and the barbaric villain Macbeth becomes, there are still reasons for an audience to feel sympathy for him
• Reasons for audience sympathy

  • He is tempted by evil witches
  • He is encouraged by a thoroughly unnatural woman, Lady Macbeth
  • He is thoroughly human: he is not pure evil, but a mixture of positive and negative character traits
  • His emotional reaction to his wife's death and questioning of his own actions as a result (Act V, Scene V)
  • Even at the end of the play, he dies a warrior's death, which could be seen by a Jacobean audience as heroic
• Lady Macbeth at the play's outset


  • Ambitious - has a thirst for power unmatched even by Macbeth, calls on evil spirits to help her achieve it
  • Ruthless - will do anything to gain power, lacks conscience to question committing regicide, would have "dashed out the brains" of her own baby
  • Duplicitous - warmly greets Duncan knowing he will be murdered
  • Controlling - plans to commit regicide, dominates her husband Macbeth
• Lady Macbeth is shown to be thoroughly untypical of a woman in the Jacobean era
• How Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth

  • Not dutiful - does not do what her husband tells her, not loyal to her king
  • Not compassionate - wants to stop herself from feeling remorse for evil acts
  • Not nurturing - wants to replace mother's milk with "gall": courage or poison
• Lady Macbeth is a less complex character than Macbeth, she does not have the same feelings of doubt or pangs of conscience
• As the play progresses, Lady Macbeth loses control of:

  1. Her resolve - finally realises the true extent of her crime and its eternal consequences

  2. Her relationship - Macbeth does not share his plans with her after Act II and becomes the dominant force

  3. Her mind - begins hallucinating blood, cannot stop walking and talking in her sleep, tormented by guilt to the point of suicide
• Shakespeare presents a role reversal in the traditional husband and wife relationship


  However, as the play progresses, Macbeth assumes the traditional, dominant role in their relationship
• Shakespeare could be suggesting that because she is a woman, Lady Macbeth is less capable of handling the power that comes with being a king or queen
• Shakespeare could also be comparing Lady Macbeth - as a woman - to the evil influence of the witches


  She is 'unnatural', just like the witches are, because of her untypical attributes and her dominance over Macbeth
• Foil

  A character used to contrast with the characteristics of a protagonist
• Banquo as a foil to Macbeth

  • Represents the typical behaviours and attitudes of the Jacobean era, the societal norms
  • Very suspicious of the witches, appeals to "reason"
  • Honest, tells Macbeth he had been dreaming about the witches
  • Loyal, vows to fight "treasonous malice"
  • Devoutly Christian, compares the witches to the Devil
• Banquo represents the societal norms


  Shakespeare makes him rightly suspicious of Macbeth's behaviour
• Banquo's suspicions of Macbeth

  • Immediately after meeting the witches, he thinks Macbeth is strange "rapt", or spellbound
  • After Macbeth becomes king, he says that he believes Macbeth "play'dst most foully for it": he thinks Macbeth got the crown by evil means
• Macduff

  • Acts as an avenging agent
  • Stands in contrast to the villainous Macbeth
• Macduff

  • Like Banquo, he represents the attributes a Jacobean audience would expect in a Scottish thane
• Noble

  When told the news of the murder of his wife and children, he gives a moving speech stating that there is more to manhood than violence and ambition. Men must also have compassion and feel grief: "I must also feel it as a man"
• Loyal

  His loyalty is tested by Malcolm and he passes the test: "I am not treacherous". He also repeatedly calls Macbeth a "tyrant", i.e. not a true ruler, but one who rules cruelly
• Brave


  He has no hesitation facing Macbeth – himself a fearsome warrior – in one-to-one combat, and he defeats him
• Audience would feel sympathy for Macduff


  Because of the cruel murder of his innocent family
• Macduff

  Acts as a symbol of the status quo: the actions of Macduff return order to the Kingdom of Scotland and return the rightful, God-chosen king to the throne
• The Witches

  A symbol of external evil: they are the representatives of the Devil on earth, and so do the devil's work
• The Witches

  • Grotesque: they are described as having bearded faces, which heightens the sense that they are supernatural, or unnatural, and not part of God's natural order
  • Duplicitous: Their prophecies are deliberately misleading, leading to characters misunderstanding them
  • Malevolent: before delivering their first three prophecies (Act I, Scene III) they are seen plotting evil acts of torture against ordinary people. This may lead the audience to suspect they have evil ideas for Macbeth, too
  • Disruptive: they are constantly seen to disrupt nature (with storms and spells) and, ultimately, seek to disrupt the Great Chain of Being and God's authority over the world
• The Witches

  Can be seen as agents of fate, only predicting the inevitable consequences of characters' actions
• The Witches


  May also be suggesting that they are only manifestations of the characters' psychological realities: they only encourage characters to be true to their own – evil – selves
• Malcolm


  Shakespeare uses Malcolm more as a symbol than a fully fleshed-out character
• Malcolm

  • Represents order or the status quo: he is the true heir to Duncan and the rightful king, as appointed by God according to the Divine Right of Kings
  • In contrast to Macbeth, he unites the Scottish thanes to battle against Macbeth
  • In contrast to Macbeth, he is not presented as a tyrant
  • In Act IV, Scene III, Malcolm discusses with Macduff what makes a tyrant, and then assures Macduff he is no such thing
• With the rightful king (Malcolm) not on the throne


  The world is thrown into disorder: the Great Chain of Being has been disrupted
• Shakespeare returns Malcolm to the throne in the last scene of the play


  The order is restored to the kingdom