AQA GCSE English Literature

Plot

Act 1

The play opens with three witches arranging to meet Macbeth after a battle. Duncan, the king of Scotland, hears that Macbeth, one of his generals, has fought bravely against a rebel army and against Norway, and that the traitorous Thane of Cawdor has been captured. Duncan orders Cawdor's execution and says Macbeth will be given the title.

On the heath, the witches greet Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and a future king, and tell Banquo that he will father a line of kings without being king himself. Messengers then arrive and announce that Macbeth has been made Thane of Cawdor, so part of the prophecy has already come true. Macbeth begins to think about murder, and writes to his wife with the news.

Lady Macbeth reads the letter and decides that her husband is too kind-natured to take the crown by force, so she calls on dark spirits to strip away her womanly feelings. When Duncan arrives at the castle as a guest she persuades a wavering Macbeth to commit the murder, answering his doubts by questioning his courage and his manhood.

Act 2

Macbeth sees a dagger in the air that points him towards Duncan's chamber. He kills the sleeping king, but brings the daggers away with him, and Lady Macbeth returns them and smears the sleeping guards with blood so that they will be blamed. Macduff and Lennox arrive at the castle in the morning, Macduff finds the body, and Macbeth kills the two guards, claiming that he did it in rage. Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee, Malcolm to England and Donalbain to Ireland, which makes them look guilty. Macbeth is named king and goes to be crowned at Scone.

Act 3

Banquo suspects Macbeth but keeps quiet. Macbeth, afraid of the prophecy about Banquo's children, hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. Banquo is killed but Fleance escapes. At a banquet that night Banquo's ghost appears and sits in Macbeth's place, visible only to Macbeth, who speaks to it in front of his guests. Lady Macbeth tries to cover for him and sends the guests away. Macbeth resolves to visit the witches again, and it becomes clear that Macduff has refused to attend the feast and is under suspicion.

Act 4

The witches show Macbeth three apparitions: an armed head tells him to beware Macduff, a bloody child tells him that no man born of woman can harm him, and a crowned child holding a tree tells him he will not be defeated until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. He then sees a line of kings that stretches into the future, with Banquo smiling at the end. Learning that Macduff has fled to England, Macbeth has Macduff's castle attacked and his wife and children murdered.

In England, Malcolm tests Macduff's loyalty by pretending to be a worse tyrant than Macbeth, and when Macduff passes the test the two agree to raise an army with English support. Ross arrives with the news of Macduff's family, and Macduff turns his grief into a determination to take revenge.

Act 5

Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, rubbing her hands and trying to wash away blood that is not there, while a doctor and a gentlewoman watch and listen. Macbeth, shut in at Dunsinane, hears that the English army is approaching and that the Scottish lords are deserting him. A cry of women is heard, and he is told that his wife is dead; his response is a bleak speech about the emptiness of life. Malcolm's soldiers cut branches from Birnam Wood to hide their numbers, and a messenger reports that the wood seems to be moving. In the fight, Macduff tells Macbeth that he was born by caesarean section, so the prophecy does not protect him. Macbeth fights on anyway, is killed, and Macduff comes back carrying his head. Malcolm is hailed king of Scotland.

Key moments

The first meeting with the witches (Act 1 scene 3)

Macbeth reacts with a start and a kind of fear, while Banquo stays calm and sceptical. This is where the audience sees how differently the two men respond to the same prophecy, and Banquo's warning that the forces of darkness win men over with small truths in order to betray them is one the play goes on to prove.

The persuasion of Macbeth (Act 1 scene 7)

Macbeth is hesitant: Duncan is his king, his cousin and his guest, and he knows that the deed will bring judgement on him. Lady Macbeth attacks his courage and says she would have killed her own baby rather than break a promise as he has. The scene shows how the decision to kill is shared, and how her taunts about masculinity work on him.

The dagger and the murder (Act 2 scenes 1 and 2)

The vision of the dagger shows a mind under strain, and the scene after the killing is full of Macbeth's panic: he feels he heard a voice saying he has murdered sleep, and he cannot bring himself to return to the room. Lady Macbeth is practical and says a little water will clear them of the deed, which is ironic given what happens to her in Act 5.

The porter (Act 2 scene 3)

The drunken porter pretends to be the gatekeeper of hell, and the comedy before Macduff's discovery of the body makes the horror that follows sharper. It also reminds the audience that Macbeth's castle has become a hellish place.

Banquo's ghost (Act 3 scene 4)

Macbeth's secret guilt breaks into public. The scene marks the point where Lady Macbeth's control starts to fail and where Macbeth chooses to go further into violence rather than turn back, since he feels that he has waded so far into blood that it would be as tiresome to go back as to go on.

The apparitions (Act 4 scene 1)

Each prophecy gives Macbeth a false sense of safety, and each is fulfilled in a way he did not expect. This is the play's best example of equivocation, in which words are true but mislead the person who hears them.

The sleepwalking scene (Act 5 scene 1)

Lady Macbeth, who once believed a little water would wash away guilt, now cannot clean her hands. Her broken speech reveals that she remembers the murder of Duncan, the killing of Lady Macduff and the death of Banquo, and the scene is written in prose rather than verse, which suits her loss of control.

Macbeth's reaction to his wife's death (Act 5 scene 5)

He says that she should have died later, and moves into a speech comparing life to a walking shadow and a poor player who struts on the stage and is heard no more. It shows a man who has outlived all feeling, and it is among the most quoted passages in the play.