How to Read Macbeth: Themes, Structure and Questions to Ask

What Macbeth is, and why it is still read

William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth around 1606, early in the reign of James I, who had been King of Scotland as James VI before inheriting the English crown in 1603. The story comes from Holinshed's Chronicles, a history Shakespeare drew on often, and reshapes the reign of an eleventh-century Scottish king into a tragedy of ambition. It is set in Scotland, with one long scene in England, and is the shortest of his tragedies.

Several details seem aimed at the new king. James claimed descent from Banquo, and the play makes Banquo honorable, where Holinshed has him help Macbeth; James had written a book on witchcraft; and the Porter's joke about an equivocator is often linked to the trial of a Jesuit after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The play is still read because it packs a complete moral collapse into a few hours and asks who is responsible when a prophecy comes true.

How Macbeth is structured, act by act

Macbeth moves faster than most of Shakespeare's plays: Duncan is dead in Act 2, and Macbeth has been named king by its end. The action turns in Act 3, when Banquo's murder fails to make Macbeth secure, because Fleance escapes and Banquo's ghost appears at the feast. Acts 4 and 5 shift attention to the forces gathering against him in England and Scotland, and the prophecies close in.

Scholars widely think the Folio text was revised after Shakespeare wrote it: the Hecate passages, 3.5 and part of 4.1, are usually attributed to Thomas Middleton. When a goddess of witchcraft suddenly appears to scold the witches, that is the material in question.

The main themes of Macbeth

Macbeth's themes are carried by repeated images more than by speeches about them, so each theme below points to the lines and scenes where you can collect evidence.

Key characters in Macbeth

The cast is built in pairs and contrasts: Macbeth and Banquo hear the same prophecies, Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff show two marriages, and Macbeth and Malcolm show two kinds of king.

• Macbeth: a brave general who becomes king by murder and tyrant by habit; his soliloquies let you watch him reason himself into each crime.
• Lady Macbeth: his wife, who plans Duncan's murder and shames him into it, then breaks down and dies offstage in Act 5.
• The witches: three weird sisters whose prophecies start the action; the play never settles exactly how much power they have.
• Banquo: Macbeth's fellow general, who hears the same prophecies and resists acting on them; his son Fleance escapes the murderers.
• Duncan: the trusting king of Scotland, killed in his sleep while a guest in Macbeth's castle.
• Macduff: the Thane of Fife, who distrusts Macbeth, flees to England, loses his family, and kills Macbeth.
• Malcolm: Duncan's elder son and heir, who tests Macduff's loyalty in England and is hailed king at the end.
• The Porter: a drunken gatekeeper who, just after the murder, imagines himself the porter of hell.

How to read Macbeth: a two-sitting plan

Macbeth is short enough to read in two long sittings, and reading it fast once lets you feel the pace the play depends on. Then go back for detail. If Shakespeare's language is new to you, this guide to reading Shakespeare covers verse, pronouns and paraphrase first.

1. 1First sitting, Acts 1 and 2: stop after 1.7 and list every reason Macbeth gives for not killing Duncan, then how Lady Macbeth overcomes them.
2. 2Read the dagger soliloquy in 2.1 aloud, and mark where the dagger seems real to Macbeth and where he calls it a product of his own mind.
3. 3Second sitting, Acts 3 to 5: keep a two-column prophecy chart, with what is foretold on one side and how it comes true on the other.
4. 4Keep a running list of every mention of blood, sleep and darkness, with act and scene, so you can quote it later.
5. 5Compare Lady Macbeth in 1.5 with the sleepwalking scene in 5.1, and write a short paragraph on how and why she changes.
6. 6Finish with the “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” speech in 5.5, read aloud, and decide whether its speaker is the man of Act 1.
7. 7For exams, put five short quotations on different themes onto cards and test yourself from memory.

Questions to ask about Macbeth

Answer each with a specific scene. For the memorization side of exam preparation, the guide to making flashcards that work suits short quotations well.

• Would Macbeth have killed Duncan without the witches, or without his wife?
• Why does Banquo keep quiet about the prophecies after Duncan's murder?
• Does Lady Macbeth's strength in Act 1 make her the more guilty of the two?
• Why does a comic Porter scene come straight after the murder?
• What does Banquo's ghost, seen only by Macbeth, show about his state of mind?
• Why does Macbeth have Macduff's family killed, when it gains him nothing?
• Why does Malcolm pretend, in England, to be worse than Macbeth?
• What makes a good king in this play, judging by Duncan and Malcolm?
• Is Macbeth's response to his wife's death grief, exhaustion or emptiness?
• Is Macbeth a tragic hero, or simply a villain?

Choosing an edition of Macbeth

Because Macbeth survives only in the First Folio, editions mostly agree on the words, unlike Hamlet, whose three early texts differ. Editions differ instead in their notes, stage directions and handling of the Hecate material. Choose one with glosses beside the text and a note on the authorship question.

Some editions divide the final battle scenes differently, so check your class's edition before citing anything late in Act 5. Theater people often call it “the Scottish play,” from a superstition against naming it inside a theater; that is stage custom, not essay material. In translation, a parallel-text edition helps with the witches' chants, whose rhyme and rhythm rarely survive.