Act 5: Macbeth’s Death

       In Act 5 Scene 5, Macbeth realizes that his death is quickly approaching. He is told that Birman Wood is coming to Dunsinane which makes him finally realize that he may not be invincible after all.   No longer feeling safe, he puts armor on and gets ready for battle. Even though one of the three things the witches warned him about have come true, Macbeth is still feeling cocky because a man born of woman cannot kill him. Little did he know that Macduff was born of corpse since he had to be directly taken out of his dead mother’s womb, therefore Macduff was able to kill Macbeth.

                                         

Act 5: Macbeth's Love

       In Act 5 Scene 3, Macbeth discovers how ill his wife actually is which makes him realize that Scotland is unwell and that if he lives until an old age his retirement would be sad. He asks a doctor to help Lady Macbeth, but the doctor said there was no cure which made Macbeth think that medicine was useless. Even when he says that he still wants the doctor to help cure his country so that his wife may become well again, which is ironic since Macbeth is the disease. He realizes that if he lives and retires he won,t have have a future with honor and friends, but instead curses and fake flattery.
                                                            

Act 5: Scottish Rebels Arrive

       In Act 5 Scene 2, Scottish rebels join Malcolm's army in Birnam Wood to overthrow Macbeth. The rebels think that Macbeth could not fill the shoes of the old king which is evident in lines 20-22 when one says, "...his title hang loose about him, like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief." Even Macbeth's soldiers are not loyal to him and do not respect him, so they can be easily swayed to leave his side. Every soldier fighting Macbeth is a drop of medicine to make Scotland well again.

                                       

Act 5: Lady Macbeth's Guilt

      In Act 5 Scene 1, the readers see that Lady Macbeth is suffering Macbeth's guilt. Ever since Macbeth started acting out, Lady Macbeth began to change. She is afraid of the dark so she always carries a candle with her, stays in bed all day, acts like she is washing blood off of her hands, writes/reads notes, and sleep walks. While she is sleep walking she confesses to being involved with Duncan's murder while a doctor and gentlewoman are present. The doctor came to evaluate her but could not figure out what was causing the problem and could only think that something dark was involved. They both decide to keep quiet about her confession, probably in fear of being killed by Macbeth. This is similar to when Hitler was in control of Germany. Germans did not want to go against Hitler in fear of being killed.

Act 4: Will Malcolm Return?

        In Act 4 Scene 3, Macduff finally reaches England where he plans to convince Malcolm to return to England to help overthrow Macbeth. Malcolm does not trust Macduff at first, because he does not know what kind of king he would allow to rule over Scotland. To put Macduff to the test, Malcolm claims that he has all the bad attributes that a king should not have, such as greed and lust, and that he would be a terrible king. When Macduff gives up on the idea of Malcolm being king, Malcolm decides to trust him and supplies Macduff with 10,000 soldiers to retake Scotland.

                                                  

Act 4: The Macduff's Slaughter

      In Act 4 Scene 1, Macbeth is told to beware of Macduff which makes him want to get rid of the Macduff family as fast as possible. Without even thinking about it, he sends people to go to Macduff's house to assassinate his family. In doing so he is hoping to eliminate the possibility of Macduff coming after him by crushing his spirit before he gets to kill him as well. In Act 4 Scene 2, the assassins go to Macduff's house and kills his family. Once the news is relayed to Macduff, he is extremely upset and blames himself for their deaths since they only died due to him leaving Scotland.
                                       

Act 4: Macbeth's Uncertain Future

     In Act 4 Scene 1, the readers see that Macbeth is feeling very uncertain about his future standing as king and wants reassurance that everything will be okay. To get his reassurance he goes to visit the three witches to demand his future. He is told three warnings regarding his position of king. He is warned about Macduff, is told that no man born of woman can hurt him, and that no harm will come to him until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. After hearing the news he becomes confident about not being able to be defeated.
                                         

Act 4: Spies Among Macbeth

      In Act 4 Scene 1, the audiences realizes that there is spy among Macbeth's trusted few. In Act 3, Lennox had talked to Lord about Macbeth's tyranny and how he is ruining Scotland. They then talk about how Macduff is going to England to bring back Malcolm, so that Scotland can have a new and better king. On the other hand, when Macbeth asks Lennox about what is going on, Lennox mentions that Macduff fled to England, but nothing about why he went. This shows that he is not telling the full truth to Macbeth so that hopefully Macduff will succeed without Macbeth interfering. 

                                              

Act 3: Suspicious Macduff

      In Act 3 Scene 4, Macduff does not make an appearance at Macbeth's dinner party which makes Macbeth feel that he is planning something against him. Since all of the guests have high standings in society and were invited to celebrate Macbeth being king, Macduff's absence is very suspicious. It makes it seem that Macduff does not accept Macbeth as king and is planning to overthrow him. Those suspicions are confirmed later on in Act 3 Scene 6 when Lennox and Lord talk about how Macduff has gone to England to find Malcolm, who is raising an army of 10,000, to bring him back to rule Scotland.
                                           

Act 3: Dinner Party Fiasco

         In Act 3 Scene 4, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth invite important guests over to their dinner party to celebrate Macbeth becoming king, but things do not turn out as planned. First of all, the hostess is supposed to sit first, but instead the guests do. They invited the guests over when it was either around or past midnight instead of having dinner earlier. The murderers who killed Banquo even show up in bloody clothes to the dinner party to tell Macbeth what had happened. To make it worse, have way through the dinner Macbeth started seeing Banquo's bloody ghost which made him start yelling. None of the other guest saw the ghost of Banquo which makes them question Macbeth's sanity. Lady Macbeth tries to cover up for her husband's actions by saying that he has had fits like that since childhood and to make sure they do no get even more suspicious she sends them all home. His actions are similar to that of an unstable person in an insane asylum when they start freaking out even though nothing is there.
                                                   

Act 3: Macbeth's Guilt

     In Act 3 Scene 2, the readers start to see how badly Macbeth's guilt is eating at him. He has started to regret his decision of killing Duncan, because he was a good king and did not deserve to die like that. He also has had trouble sleeping due to the guilt weighing on his mind. If he ever did fall asleep his thoughts would be filled with nightmares and made him not want to fall asleep again after he would wake up. He has even become jealous of Duncan being dead, because it would be better to be dead than live in uncertain joy.
                                                   

Act 3: The Planning Of Banquo's Downfall

    In Act 3 Scene 1, Macbeth plans on murdering Banquo and his son to get rid of any loose ends tied to Duncan's murder and to make sure he wont tell anyone about the witches predictions. He also does not want Banqo's descendants to prosper off of his hard work. With Macbeth feeling paranoid, he hires murderers to do the dirty work and claims that he cannot commit the murder because he has mutual friends who would not like it. To manipulate the murderers further he says that Banquo is the one who ruined their lives, so this is a perfect opportunity for them to take revenge. He does not even tell Lady Macbeth about his plans since she would either stop him or make him doubt himself.
                                              

Act 2: The Gates of Hell

     In Act 2 Scene 3, the porter of Macbeth's castle compares the door of the castle to the gates of hell.  The night of Duncan's murder, Bangui and Lennox come knocking on Macbeth's door and wakes the porter. The porter hears the knocking and thinks it sounds like demons and imagines dead people living in the castle. It makes since that he said that since Duncan's murder happened in the castle which would later on change Scotland for the worse.The comparison signifies that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have committed evil and are going to cause unfortunate events to occur.
                                     

                                     

Act 2: The Unnatural Death

     In Act 2 Scene 4, the audience discovers that strange unnatural events occurred due to Duncan's death which could foreshadow that bad things are to come. All three events that occurred the night of his death are things that people have never witnessed before. The first thing that happened was Duncan's horses started eating each other. The second strange event that occurred was that is was dark when it was supposed to be daytime. And finally people witnessed an owl killing a falcon. The owl represents Macbeth and the falcon represents Duncan which signifies the act of Macbeth murdering a superior.

                                         

Act 2: Duncan's Murder

    After Macbeth murders Duncan, several people get different ideas of who the murderer could be. In Act 2 Scene 2, Macbeth finally goes through with his plan and murders Duncan. When the body is discovered, Banquo is almost sure that it was Macbeth even though Lady Macbeth planted the murder weapons on Duncan's two chamberlains, because the murder happened soon after Macbeth heard about his future of being king. On the other hand Lennox believes it was Malcolm and Donalbain that committed the crime, because after they discovered Duncan's body the boys were gone. Obviously a lot of other people believe it actually was the two chamberlains because they had the murder weapons so they are the obvious suspect.
                                                      
                                 

Act 2: Banquo's Fate Foreshadowed

     In Act 2 Scene 1, Banquo feels weird about his future and has a talk with his son about it. First of all he has had trouble sleeping lately, because his dreams have been filled with horrid nightmares so he has a hard time falling back to sleep. He looks up to the sky and says that he can't see any stars, which suggests that he either does not have a future or he does not see a future in store for him. Banquo not being able to see stars could foreshadow that he is going to die later on in the story. He also gives his son, Fleance, his sword, which suggests that he knows his death is coming soon so he is trying to give his son what he has.

                                       

Act 1: Macbeth's Complex Thoughts

         In Act 1 Scene 5 you start to see how Macbeth keeps changing his mind about killing Duncan. Initially he is all for killing him so that he could become king, but later on when he tells his wife his plan he starts to doubt himself. Lady Macbeth convinces him to continue his plan by questioning his masculinity. Then in Scene 6, when the king is over at his house and he's thinking about going through with it he backs out once again. He convinces himself not to kill him by thinking about how they're related, that Duncan is his guest, that he is a good king, and that his death would make people mad. Of course Lady Macbeth convinces him to continue his plan once again by telling him what they can do to get the job without being caught. He keeps going back and forth not knowing whether he should turn to evil so that he can become king quickly or stick with patience and wait until his time to be king comes.

                              

Act 1: Lady Macbeth's Masculine Side

      In Act 1 Scene 5, the readers get to see into Lady Macbeth's thoughts. She is all in on Macbeth's idea of killing the king, but fears that he won't be able to go through with it. He keeps going back and forth on whether he actually wants to kill Duncan or not and it is worrying Lady Macbeth. She does not want to have to rely on Macbeth to kill the king and wishes that she could have the strength of a man to do it herself. She asks the spirits to unsex her and rid herself of her feminine qualities, so that she could rid herself of feminine weaknesses and get the job done. She's the true man in the family and constantly let's Macbeth know by questioning his masculinity so that he will kill Duncan.

                                                          

Act 1: Macbeth's Fortune Is Told

        Macbeth and Banquo's relationship becomes strained in the story once they hear each other's fortunes. In Act 1 Scene 3, three witches approach Macbeth and Banquo to explain what fate holds for them. Macbeth is told that he will become king one day and Banquo is told that his descendants will become king. Before their fortunes were told by the witches, Banquo and Macbeth were close friends. But now that Banquo has heard Macbeth's fortune, Macbeth is worried that Banquo will tell someone or somehow make it to where he won't be able to be king anymore. Since neither of them know what the other will do with the information they just heard, their relationship becomes strained.  This situation is similar to when you and your friend are up for the award and you both want it, so the relationship becomes tense.

Act 1: The Sailor's Wife's Chestnuts

            When reading Macbeth, one can see that the the sailor's wife and Lady Macbeth are supposed to be the same person. In Act 1 Scene 3, a witch approached a sailor's wife and asked for one of her chestnuts. The wife refused to give her one which angered the witch. Because of the refusal the witch decided to punish the sailor for the rest of his life. This is basically foreshadowing what will happen later on in the story regarding Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the three witches. The sailor's wife represents Lady Macbeth, because she wants to mess with black magic but is not willing to give anything in return. Due to her ignorance of the black arts her husband, Macbeth, will end up suffering the consequences. This situation is similar to when you ask for something but your not allowed to get it, so you throw a tantrum. The witches are the ones throwing the tantrum due to not receiving anything from the sailor's wife/Lady Macbeth.