Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and frightening female characters. When we first see her, she is already plotting Duncan’s murder, and she is stronger, more ruthless, and more ambitious than her husband. She seems fully aware of this and knows that she will have to push Macbeth into committing murder. At one point, she wishes that she were not a woman so that she could do it herself. The witches summon Macbeth and show him the future again. At first, they warn him about Macduff returning to Scotland. Next, they tell him that only a child not born from a woman can kill him. Finally, they show him a child wearing a crown and holding a tree. They tell him that unless the Great Birnam wood (forest) moves, Macbeth will not be killed. Though Macbeth’s confidence is restored, he asks the witches about the prophecy on Banquo’s descendants. During his confrontation with the witches, Banquo’s ghost is present, and the witches leave without giving him the answer. Lennox meets Macbeth at the cave and informs the alliance between Malcolm and Macduff with the English. Macbeth, in the fit of rage, decides to kill Macduff himself. Though the messenger tries to save Macduff’s family, at Macduff’s castle, Lady Macduff is killed, and his son tries to escape. Ross, one of the noblemen, informs Macduff about his family’s murder. As Macduff grieves over the death of his family, Malcolm, King Duncan’s son, asks Macduff to turn his sorrow into revenge. Presenter: Hello, and welcome to The Big Scene. We’re at rehearsals for Macbeth , and scenes don’t get much bigger than this. It’s the clash with Banquo’s ghost and the director really needs the audience to appreciate Macbeth’s horror at seeing the ghost of his old best friend who he’s had murdered. This is a big challenge! Can she pull it off on this team’s budget? The most famous speech in this play full of famous lines and speeches is Macbeth's soliloquy that begins " Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/To the last syllable of recorded time . . . ." These lines express Macbeth's utter hopelessness near the tragedy's end about not only his life, but life in general. Thisisreinforcedinthe1977RoyalShakespeareCompanyversionoftheplaywhereheworewhitewhichsymbolisespeaceandpurity.

Act1Scene4.Heusesveryformallanguagee.g. ‘swiftestwingofrecompence’.Suggestshiswisdomsisembeddedintohisverybeing.Soinherentlykinglythathecan’thelpbutusethislanguage. Herecognisesthatthey’re ‘instrumentsofdarkness’ .ThiscreatesahugecontrasttoMacbethwhoiseasilycorruptedand ‘raptwithal’ .And whattayaknow! The Witches are right – Macbeth is promoted to Thane of Cawdor! Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth about the crazy predictions. And she’s like yeah! And King Duncan is coming to visit! So, she persuades Macbeth to kill Duncan, to make sure he becomes king. I know! She’s nasty!

Thenighthasbeenunruly,theEarthwasfeverish’-saidafterDuncan’sdeath.Personificationandpatheticfallacy.Believedatthetimethatthehealthofthekingwasinextricablylinkedtothehealthofthenation.Duncan’sdeathhadupsetthenaturalbalanceofthings.Ross: He is Macduff’s cousin and a loyal noble of the Scottish Kingdom. Ross delivers Macbeth’s and Banquo’s victory of the war again, the King of Norway. After the witches’ first prophecy, Ross delivers the news of Macbeth’s new title. He is one of the thanes who leave Macbeth when Malcolm and Macduff arrive with the army.

Here Macbeth’s ambitious character is compared to a puppet as he was cursed by the witches and did what they had been plotting before they curse him.

Jacobeanpropaganda!ShakespeareshowstheterribleconsequencesofcommittingregicidethroughMacbethwhichwoulddeteranyonefromtryingtokillJames1st,themonarchatthetime.Ananathematotheaudience. The repetition of the phrase "thou wouldst," in all its permutations, confounds the flow of speech. The speech is clotted with accents, tangling meter and scansion, and the alliteration is almost tongue-twisting, slowing the rhythm of the words. Just as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have corrupted nature, the language Shakespeare uses in these scenes disrupts the flow of his usually smoothly iambic meter.

Macbeth believes in the witches’ prophecy and remains overconfident. Recalling the first apparition shown by the witches, that nobody born of a woman could kill him, he remains anxious but unmoved. He worries about his wife, Lady Macbeth’s failing mental health.

Shakespeareuses stichomythia(MacbethandLadyMacbethspeakinalternatelines)afterDuncan’sdeath.MacbethandLadyMacbetharelinguisticallyandmorallyconjoined. Banquosaystothewitches ‘Ayefantasticalorthatindeedwhichoutwardlyyoushow’. Questioningtheirreality,instantlyrecognisedtheymaybemisleading.NotcaptivatedorcorruptedlikeMacbeth. On the heath near the battlefield, thunder rolls and the three witches appear. One says that she has just come from “[k]illing swine” and another describes the revenge she has planned upon a sailor whose wife refused to share her chestnuts. Suddenly a drum beats, and the third witch cries that Macbeth is coming. Macbeth and Banquo, on their way to the king’s court at Forres, come upon the witches and shrink in horror at the sight of the old women. Banquo asks whether they are mortal, noting that they don’t seem to be “inhabitants o’ th’ earth” (1.3.39). He also wonders whether they are really women, since they seem to have beards like men. The witches hail Macbeth as thane of Glamis (his original title) and as thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is baffled by this second title, as he has not yet heard of King Duncan’s decision. The witches also declare that Macbeth will be king one day. Stunned and intrigued, Macbeth presses the witches for more information, but they have turned their attention to Banquo, speaking in yet more riddles. They call Banquo “lesser than Macbeth, and greater,” and “not so happy, yet much happier”; then they tell him that he will never be king but that his children will sit upon the throne (1.3.63–65). Macbeth implores the witches to explain what they meant by calling him thane of Cawdor, but they vanish into thin air.