• If you could be told your future, would

you want to know what it is?

• What would you think if you were told

you were going to be rich, famous,

and powerful?

• Would you kill in order to make that

future come true?

• This is the premise of William

Shakespeare’s play MACBETH

• Macbeth is Shakespeare’s most violent, gripping play.

It seethes with tension, the plot is swift and

unrelenting, and the drama still has the power to

seize audience’s imaginations.

• Additionally, the inclusion of supernatural elements,

and the ghostly apparitions that appear throughout

Macbeth make this one of Shakespeare’s most

thrilling entertainments.

• Macbeth’s powerful prose, vivid characters, and a

fitting ending are only a few of the reasons this play

ranks as one of Shakespeare’s most popular and

enduring works.

• The play “Macbeth” takes place in Scotland, in the 11 th

Century.

• Scotland is ruled by a benevolent king, Duncan, and

lower nobles, called Thanes.

• “Thane” was the title given to a local royal official in

medieval eastern Scotland, equivalent to a count.

• At the beginning of the play, Macbeth (the Thane of

Glamis), and his friend and comrade Banquo, are

coming back victorious from a great battle, in which the

Thane of Cawdor has formed a rebellion and tried to

seize the throne.

• Macbeth valiantly fights in the battle, single-handedly

winning the day.

• On the way home, Macbeth and Banquo are met by a

trio of three women who greet Macbeth by the

prophecy that he will be King one day. (video)

Banquo is told that while he will not be king, his sons

will inherit the throne.

• Consumed with ambitious thoughts and goaded to

action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan

while he sleeps and seizes the throne for himself.

(video)

• He begins his reign racked with guilt and fear and

soon becomes a tyrannical ruler, as he is forced to

commit more and more murders to protect himself

from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath swiftly

propels Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to arrogance,

madness, and death.

• Macbeth was most likely written in 1606, early in the

reign of James I, who had been James VI of

Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne

in 1603.

• James was a patron of Shakespeare’s acting

company, and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote

under James’s reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects

the playwright’s close relationship with the

sovereign.

• In focusing on Macbeth, a figure from Scottish

history, Shakespeare paid homage to his king’s

Scottish lineage.

• Macbeth was first published in the first folio, in 1623.

• Macbeth - Macbeth is a Scottish general and the

thane of Glamis who is led to wicked thoughts by the

prophecies of the three witches.

• Lady Macbeth - Macbeth’s wife, a deeply ambitious

woman who lusts for power and position.

• The Three Witches - Three “black and midnight

hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using

charms, spells, and prophecies.

• Banquo - The brave, noble general whose children,

according to the witches’ prophecy, will inherit the

Scottish throne.

• King Duncan - 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 his son

Malcolm, once more occupies the throne.

• 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.

• Malcolm - The son of Duncan, whose restoration to the throne

signals Scotland’s return to order following Macbeth’s reign of

terror. 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.

• The main theme of Macbeth is the destruction and

bloodshed that occurs when ambition and greed

overcome human morals.

• Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not

naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply

desires power and advancement. He kills King Duncan

against his better judgment and afterward stews in guilt

and paranoia.

• Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, pursues her goals

with greater determination, yet she is less capable of

withstanding the repercussions of her immoral acts.

• Visions and hallucinations recur throughout the play.

• When he is about to kill Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger

floating in the air. Covered with blood and pointed toward

the king’s chamber, the dagger represents the bloody

course on which Macbeth is about to embark. (video)

• Later, he sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in a chair at a feast,

pricking his conscience by mutely reminding him that he

murdered his former friend.

• Lady Macbeth also eventually gives way to visions, as she

sleepwalks and believes that her hands are stained with

blood that cannot be washed away by any amount of

water.

• Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in motion—namely, the witches’

prophecy that Macbeth will become first thane of Cawdor and

then king.

• The weird sisters make a number of other prophecies: they tell

us that Banquo’s heirs will be kings, that Macbeth should

beware Macduff, that Macbeth is safe till Birnam Wood comes to

Dunsinane, and that no man born of woman can harm Macbeth.

(video)

• Save for the prophecy about Banquo’s heirs, all of these

predictions are fulfilled within the course of the play.

• Still, it is left deliberately ambiguous whether some of them are

self-fulfilling—for example, whether Macbeth wills himself to be

king or is fated to be king.

• Additionally, the prophecies must be interpreted as riddles, since

they do not always mean what they seem to mean.

"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my

hand?"Act II, Scene I

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty

pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And

all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor

player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard

no more.

It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.” Act V, Scene V

“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way

comes.” Act IV, Scene I

"There's daggers in men's smiles". Act II, Sc. III

“What's done is done". Act III, Scene II

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair". Act I, Scene I

"I bear a charmed life". Act V, Sc. VIII

"Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness." Act I, Scene V

"Will all great Neptune's ocean

wash this blood clean from my hand?” Act II, Sc. II

"Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." Act IV, Scene I

"Look like the innocent flower,

but be the serpent under 't." Act I, Scene V

• Probably the most well known theatre superstition

involves William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth -- often

called, by actors, 'the bards play' or 'the Scottish play'.

• The superstition follows that any company performing

the play will be beset with horrible luck, ranging

anywhere from uncanny accidents on the set to actual

deaths within the company!

• This superstition arose from the inclusion of the witch’s

characters on stage, and the chants and incantations

they invoke.

• The superstition is so prevalent that many actors and

directors will not even say the name “Macbeth” inside

a theater, for fear of bringing back luck upon the

company.

• Macbeth has become one of Shakespeare’s most influential works. It’s been adapted into ballets and operas.

• There have been over sixty film and television adaptions of Macbeth, the first in 1908!

• Other notable film adaptions are the 1948 Orson Wellesadaption;

• The 1957 adaption Throne Of Blood which takes place in feudal Japan;

• A 1979 TV adaption with Ian McKellan and Judy Densch

• A 2008 TV adaption starring Patrick Stewart.

• There has even been a 2012 animated science fiction version of Macbeth entirely with robots!

• A new Macbeth currently is in production starring Michael Fassbender, and a second independent film based on Macbeth called Enemy of Man starring Sean Bean and Rupert Grint is also in pre-production!

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