Revision notes written to the specification, with examiner tips and the required practicals. Every point here has flashcards in the Stickwise app.
Plot & structure
Three witches meet Macbeth and Banquo on a Scottish heath and hail Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and 'king hereafter', telling Banquo that his own descendants will be kings, though he will never be one himself. Messengers confirm the Cawdor title within minutes, and this half-true prophecy is what first sparks Macbeth's ambition.
That night, Lady Macbeth persuades a hesitant Macbeth to murder the visiting King Duncan. She questions his courage, says she would rather kill her own baby than break such a promise, and plans to get Duncan's guards drunk so that they can be framed for the murder.
After the killing, Macbeth panics and carries the bloody daggers back with him instead of leaving them by the guards, so Lady Macbeth has to return them herself. Macduff discovers Duncan's body the next morning, and Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee abroad, fearing that they will be the next targets.
Now king, Macbeth fears Banquo, both for his suspicions and for the prophecy that Banquo's own descendants will be kings. He hires murderers who kill Banquo, though his son Fleance escapes. At the banquet that follows, Banquo's ghost appears silently in Macbeth's own chair; only Macbeth can see it, and his guests watch him rave in terror at what looks like an empty seat.
Shaken, Macbeth returns to the witches, who show him three apparitions. They warn him to beware Macduff, promise that no man born of woman can harm him, and say he is safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane. Reassured by conditions that sound impossible, Macbeth orders the murder of Macduff's wife and children.
Guilt overwhelms Lady Macbeth, who sleepwalks and later dies offstage. Malcolm's army disguises itself with branches cut from Birnam Wood, fulfilling the prophecy in a way Macbeth never expected. Macduff, delivered by what would now be called a caesarean section and so not, strictly, born of woman, kills Macbeth in single combat, and Malcolm is crowned king.
The witches' first prophecy promises Macbeth the crown, and promises Banquo that his descendants, not Banquo himself, will be kings.
The apparitions' later prophecies promise Macbeth that no man born of woman can harm him, and that he is safe until Birnam Wood moves.
Both prophecies come true in ways Macbeth does not expect, since Macduff was born by caesarean section and Malcolm's soldiers carry branches from Birnam Wood as camouflage.
🎯 Examiner tip: Examiners already know the story, so a response that only retells the plot of a scene will not reach the higher levels. Rather than explaining what happens when Banquo's ghost appears at the banquet, a stronger answer explains why Shakespeare places it there: it externalises Macbeth's guilt and shows his authority collapsing in front of his own lords. Good analysis keeps moving from what happens towards why Shakespeare chose to show it that way.
Characters
MacbethAt the start of the play, Macbeth is a brave and respected general who has just won a great battle for King Duncan and is entirely loyal to him. Meeting the witches awakens a hidden ambition, which Lady Macbeth then feeds, turning a noble soldier towards murder. He becomes an increasingly violent and paranoid tyrant, ordering further murders to protect his crown, and grows isolated as he loses the loyalty of his lords.
Lady MacbethLady Macbeth begins as the more ruthless and decisive of the two, mocking Macbeth's courage and planning Duncan's murder herself. She cannot cope with the guilt that follows, however, and descends into sleepwalking and madness, crying 'Out, damned spot!' as she imagines blood she cannot wash from her hands, before dying offstage.
BanquoBanquo is Macbeth's friend and fellow general, who receives his own prophecy from the witches but, unlike Macbeth, does not act on ambition to make it come true. His honesty makes him a foil to Macbeth, a contrasting character who shows what Macbeth could have chosen instead, and his murder, and the ghost that returns at the banquet, torment Macbeth's conscience for the rest of the play.
MacduffMacduff, the Thane of Fife, grows suspicious of Macbeth and flees to England, leaving his family behind. When Macbeth has Macduff's wife and children murdered, Macduff's grief turns to revenge, and he returns with Malcolm's army to kill Macbeth in the final battle.
DuncanDuncan is a generous, trusting king who rewards loyalty and openly admires Macbeth. His murder is especially shocking because Macbeth kills him as both kinsman and king, and while acting as his host, breaking every duty of family, loyalty and hospitality at once.
The witchesThe witches are supernatural figures who speak in riddling, equivocal prophecies: statements that seem to predict the future but may only be planting temptation. Their opening words, 'fair is foul, and foul is fair', announce the play's confusion of appearance and reality from the very first scene, and their dramatic function is to tempt Macbeth rather than simply to control him.
🎯 Examiner tip: A quotation works best woven into a sentence rather than dropped in on its own. Rather than simply announcing that a quotation is coming, a stronger sentence reads: Lady Macbeth's guilt surfaces physically as she cries 'Out, damned spot!' while sleepwalking. A short quotation embedded like this, with a single word or phrase to analyse, is usually more effective than a longer quotation there is no room to unpack.
Themes
AmbitionMacbeth's ambition, sparked by the witches' prophecies and fed by Lady Macbeth, drives him to murder for power. Shakespeare shows that ambition is never satisfied: each murder creates new threats rather than security, trapping Macbeth in a cycle of violence and paranoia that ends only with his own downfall.
GuiltGuilt punishes both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth psychologically long before any earthly justice catches up with them. Lady Macbeth insists early on that 'what's done is done', but she cannot hold to this: she later sleepwalks, endlessly washing hands she believes will not come clean, while Macbeth hallucinates a dagger and then Banquo's ghost.
Kingship and orderDuncan, and later Malcolm, represent good and legitimate kingship: dutiful, generous, and chosen by God. Macbeth's tyranny brings fear and chaos to Scotland instead, and his murder of a king is shown disturbing the natural order itself, through storms and strange events after Duncan's death, not only the political order.
Appearance and realityCharacters in Macbeth constantly hide their true intentions. Macbeth plays the welcoming host while planning murder, and the witches' prophecies seem to promise safety while actually misleading him. Their opening words, 'fair is foul, and foul is fair', announce this deception from the very first scene.
Fate and free willThe witches and Banquo's ghost blur the line between fate and free will, since the prophecies may only tempt Macbeth into choices he was always capable of making for himself, rather than controlling him outright. A Jacobean audience took witchcraft seriously as a real and diabolic danger, not as mere theatrical spectacle, which gave this uncertainty a genuine, unsettling force.
Gender and masculinityLady Macbeth asks spirits to 'unsex me here' and taunts Macbeth's masculinity to push him towards murder, treating violence as proof of manhood. By the end of the play this idea of manhood is questioned, since true strength is shown instead through grief and integrity, in characters such as Macduff.
🎯 Examiner tip: The exam question prints an extract and asks for analysis of it alongside the rest of the play. The strongest answers stay grounded in the extract's specific words and its place in the story, then move outward to one or two clearly chosen moments elsewhere in the play that develop the same theme. An answer that stays inside the extract, or one that leaves it behind for a general essay, both lose marks: the mark scheme rewards responses that handle both halves.
Context & Shakespeare's methods
James I became king of England in 1603 and was fascinated and frightened by witchcraft, even writing a book about it. Shakespeare's company performed for him, so a Jacobean audience would have taken the witches seriously as a real, sinister threat rather than as theatrical decoration.
Many Jacobeans believed a king's authority came directly from God, and that the universe held a fixed hierarchy running from God down to the lowest creature, an idea known as the Great Chain of Being. Murdering a king was thought to throw both nature and society into disorder, which is why strange weather and animal behaviour follow Duncan's death.
In 1605, Catholic conspirators tried to blow up Parliament and kill James I in the Gunpowder Plot. Written soon afterwards, Macbeth reflects contemporary fears about treason and the murder of a lawful king, making regicide an especially resonant and frightening subject for its first audiences.
SoliloquyA soliloquy is a speech a character delivers alone on stage, revealing private thoughts to the audience. Macbeth's soliloquies, from questioning the dagger he sees to his later reflection that life is 'a tale told by an idiot', chart his psychological unravelling.
Dramatic ironyDramatic irony happens when the audience knows something a character does not. Duncan praises the 'pleasant seat' of Macbeth's castle and trusts his host completely, moments before the audience knows that Macbeth means to murder him that very night.
Blank verse and proseNoble, controlled characters normally speak in unrhymed blank verse. A shift into prose signals disorder or a broken mind: the Porter's comic scene and Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene are both written in prose, unlike her controlled verse earlier in the play.
ImageryBlood imagery represents guilt that cannot be washed away, as when Macbeth despairs of ever managing to 'wash this blood clean from my hand'. Darkness imagery hides evil deeds from being seen, and Clothing imagery presents new titles as ill-fitting garments, suggesting that Macbeth's crown was never rightfully his.
Tragic structureMacbeth follows the shape of a classical tragedy: a noble hero undone by a fatal flaw, here Macbeth's ambition, rising from temptation through murder to a climax at the banquet, then falling through tyranny to his final downfall, and provoking pity and fear in the audience.
🎯 Examiner tip: Context earns marks only when it explains the text, not when it sits beside it. Rather than simply noting that James I was fascinated by witchcraft, the stronger point explains how that interest changes the effect of the witches' prophecies on a Jacobean audience, who would have found the supernatural threat entirely credible. A historical fact left unconnected to a specific moment in the play will not earn credit on its own.
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