Duncan

• Role

  ·       A much loved and respected King with a clear conscience

  ·       Loving, generous and full of respect for Macbeth and Banquo

  ·       Metaphorically blind to who he can trust

  · A symbol of the Divine Right
• Duncan praises Macbeth for his bravery and loyalty: “o valiant cousin”
• When informed about the execution of his old Thane of Cawdor who betrayed him in battle, he reflects “there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.”
• When Macbeth is having doubts about carrying out the regicide on him, he reflects that Duncan is “so clear in his great office”, and if he were to be taken, “tears shall drown the wind” and “his virtues will plead like angles”
• Macduff describes his death as a “most sacrilegious murder”, as if someone has “broke open the lord’s anointed temple and stole thence the life of the building.”