02/10/2012

"Macbeth"_ Summary

The play takes place in Scotland where Duncan, the king, is at war with the king of Norway.
As the play opens, he learns of Macbeth's bravery in a battle and so decided to give him the title of Thane of Cawdor.
While Macbeth and Banquo return home, they meet three witches. The witches predict that Macbeth will be thane of Cawdor and king of Scotland, and that Banquo will be the father of kings. After the witches disappear, arrive two noblemen Ross and Angus, who announce Macbeth's new title. Upon hearing this, Macbeth begins to believe in the witches' prophecy.

Duncan decides to spend the night at Macbeth's castle. Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth recieves a letter from Macbeth informing her of the witches' prophecies. This pushes her to plot Duncan's murder, telling him her plan for the murder, which Macbeth accepts: they will kill him while his drunken servants sleep, then plant incriminating evidence on the servants.

The same night Lady Macbeth waits for Macbeth to finish the act but when Macbeth enters, he is still carrying the bloody daggers. Lady Macbeth again chastises him for his weak-mindedness and plants the daggers on the servants herself. While she does so, arrive the thanes Macduff and Lennox. Immediately thereafter, Macduff discovers Duncan’s dead body and Macbeth kills the two servants.
Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain, fearing their lives to be in danger, excaped to England and Ireland. Their flight brings them under suspicion of conspiring against Duncan. Macbeth is thus crowned king of Scotland.
Immediately, since Macbeth starts trusting in the prophecies, forces his hand in the murder of Banquo and his son Fleance as well. Successfully killing Banquo but not Fleance.
Meanwhile, Macbeth's thanes begin to turn against him and Macduff meets Malcolm in England to prepare an army to march on Scotland.
In the meantime back in Scotland, Macbeth has Macduff’s wife and children murdered.

He visits the witches and they offer to him more prophecies. The first warns him against Macduff, the second tells him to fear no man born of woman, and the third prophesizes that he will fall only when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane castle. Macbeth takes this as a prophecy that he is infallible.

Lady Macbeth started suffering of sleepwalking. While she walks in the night she pronounces that she cannot wash her hands clean of bloodstains. Just as the English army led by Malcolm, and Macduff approaches, Lady Macbeth commits suicides.

Taking the witches’ second prophecies in good faith, Macbeth still believes that he is invincible. But Malcolm has instructed each man in the English army to cut a tree branch from Birnam Wood and hold it up. As a result, Macbeth's servant reports that he has seen a impossible sight: Birnam Wood seems to be moving toward the castle.
In battle, Macbeth kills Young Siward, the English general's brave son. Macduff then challenges Macbeth. As they fight, Macduff reveals that he was not "of woman born" but was "untimely ripped" from his mother's womb and then Macduff kills him and decapitates him. At the end of the play, Malcolm is proclaimed the new king of Scotland.