Duncan, King of Scotland

Duncan is the King of Scotland, an old, gracious, pious and gentle man, who resembles
Lady Macbeth’s father in his sleep. 
He is somewhat too trusting, and will be betrayed twice by Thanes of Cawdor he trusted
in the space of a very few days. He does not fight on the front line himself, but leaves
this duty to others. He is nevertheless quite prepared to pronounce sentence of death
on traitors. He promises to improve the fortunes of his victorious generals Banquo and
Macbeth just before announcing Malcolm as his heir. He is stabbed to death in his sleep
by Macbeth.

Malcolm
Malcolm is Duncan’s eldest son. Almost captured in the battle that rages at the
beginning of the play, he is rescued by the captain. 

He is named Prince of Cumberland and heir to the throne by Duncan once all the
fighting is done. On his father’s death, he flees to England, unwilling to trust the Scottish
nobles. This allows Macbeth to frame him as the murderer. In time he becomes the
rallying point of opposition to Macbeth, and with the English king’s help assembles a
massive army to recover his throne. To test Macduff’s loyalty to Scotland, Malcolm
pretends to be a thoroughly vile human being to him; he is reassured that Macduff
works for his country and not simply out of hatred when Macduff turns from him. He
conceives the idea of camouflaging his army’s advance with the trees of Birnam Forest.
On his victory, he re-titles the thanes as earls, an English title rather than a Scottish one.

Donalbain
Donalbain is Duncan’s second son. After his father’s murder, he suggests to Malcolm
that they quickly leave. 

He flees to Ireland, arguing that by going to separate places he and his brother will be
safer. He is not returned to join in the battle against Macbeth.

Macbeth
Macbeth is Thane of Glamis. A superb general, he is a physically powerful man, able in a
fight to eviscerate a man with an upward stroke. 

The predictions of the witches make a great impression on him; though he insists on
reasons for being called Thane of Cawdor, the moment it is confirmed the thought of
becoming king lodges in his mind. Very close to his wife, he writes to her of the
prediction as soon as he can. Though at first he seems willing to let Fortune take care of
bringing him to the throne, the thought of murder cannot be hid, and his wife soon
pushes him to it. He still over-thinks the matter, finding out all the moral objections to
the act, but he cannot adequately answer his wife’s incitements to committing it. He is
possessed of a powerful imagination that is able to conjure a dagger before his eyes. As
he leaves after killing Duncan, he hears a voice predicting that he will never sleep again,
a prediction that comes true. He is quick-witted enough to kill Duncan’s grooms as his
supposed murderers before they can protest their innocence. Deeply insecure, he is a
paranoid king, keeping spies in the household of every nobleman. He plans to have
Banquo and Fleance killed in the hopes of undoing the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s
descendants would take the throne. Once king, he becomes far more manipulative than
he was, able to convince the murderers that their complaints against him are actually
Banquo’s responsibility. He hides the murder plot from his Queen, signaling an end to
the closeness of their relationship. Courageous though he may be in battle, he is not
proof against the supernatural, as evidenced by the apparition of Banquo’s ghost. To
explain his fit, he explains to his assembled noblemen that he is subject to an epileptic-
type condition, but whether this is true or not is uncertain. By this stage an insomniac,
he has lost all hope of redemption, and is determined to do anything that he must to
keep himself safe. To this end he visits the witches. He is reassured by the three
apparitions they conjure for him, but fails to note the warnings in their shapes which
offer a hint of the loopholes in their promises. Hearing of Macduff’s flight, he resolves to
now act on his first impulses, and he sends his men to sack Fife and murder all of
Macduff’s family. The reassurances of the witches lead him to discount the desertions in
his ranks, but he is nevertheless grown to a state of despair, thinking that his life has
gone on long enough. Still, he arms himself, and swears that he will not simply give up.
He cares about his wife in her illness, though his concern for her state of mind may
apply as much to his own. By the time Malcolm’s army begins its approach, he has lost
all touch of the fear that afflicted him in the lead-up to his killing Duncan. He alternates
between wild rage and deep, nihilistic depression as his wife commits suicide and his
enemies arrive at his gate. He is brought to doubt the witches’ promises by the moving
forest of Birnam, and in his last moments convinced of their falseness when Macduff
reveals the circumstances of his birth. He still pulls up his courage, however, and dies
fighting.

Banquo
Banquo is a Scottish Thane, Macbeth’s co-general in the wars. 

He spots the witches before Macbeth does, and is not afraid to question them, wishing
for a prediction as to his future as well. When the first prediction comes true, he is
startled, and worried that it may make Macbeth covet the crown. He is wary of the dark
powers’ wiliness. The witches and their prophecies remain on his mind, but he reaffirms
his loyalty to Duncan when Macbeth subtly tests it. He suspects Macbeth of Duncan’s
murder, and his accession to king leaves Banquo in hope that his children may yet take
the throne. On being attacked by three murderers, his thoughts are for his son Fleance’s
safety. After his death, he reappears as a ghost and as an apparition.

Macduff is the Thane of Fife. Commanded by Duncan to visit him early in the morning
at Macbeth’s castle, he discovers the King’s body. 

Though he accepts the explanation that Duncan’s attendants committed the murder at
his sons’ instigation, he refuses to attend Macbeth’s coronation. Having refused to
attend a feast of Macbeth’s, he is cast into disgrace, and travels to England to beg King
Edward to help Malcolm overthrow the usurper. His wife accuses him of lacking natural
human feeling and of being a coward for having fled. A noble and ethical idealist, he is
horrified by Malcolm’s listing of his own vices, and finally must conclude that the young
man is no more worthy of the throne than Macbeth. The revelation that Malcolm was
merely testing him leaves him a touch off-kilter. Though he left them in Scotland, he
remains fond of his wife and children, and is devastated when he learns that they have
been slaughtered on his account. This grief becomes his chief spur against Macbeth. He
leads a part of Malcolm’s army, but at the battle of Dunsinane soon abandons them
while on a single-minded quest to find and kill Macbeth himself. Finding him, he wastes
little time in dialogue, preferring to trust to his sword. He tears Macbeth’s last hope
from him by revealing that he was the issue of a Caesarean birth, and threatens him with
abject humiliation. In the end, he succeeds in beheading him. 

Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is a ruthless woman. More openly ambitious than her husband, she does
not shy from murder, and pushes Macbeth towards it. 

She is worried that his kinder side may keep him from going as far as he may. She calls
on the powers of darkness to steel her against remorse or misgiving, and concocts he
whole plan of how to kill Duncan. When Macbeth backs out of the thought, she brings
him around by a combination of mockery, belittling of his manhood, and accusations of
cowardice. She drugs the king’s attendants herself, and leaves their daggers when
Macbeth will see them. She considers committing the murder herself, but she is
troubled by Duncan’s resemblance to her father, and forbears. Though frightened while
waiting for Macbeth to emerge from Duncan’s chamber, she is controlled enough to
erase all the evidence afterwards. Once Queen, her closeness with her husband begins
to fray as he draws away from her, now hiding his plots. She is at first able to stop the
feast from disintegrating into chaos when Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost, but in the end
realizes that she must rid the room of witnesses. Consciously she does not suffer the
remorse that affects Macbeth; but while he can no longer sleep, she begins to
sleepwalk, admitting to her guilt and begging for some way to wash away her sins. In
the end she is guilt-ridden enough that she commits suicide.

First Witch
The First Witch seems to be the leader of the trio of witches. 

She speaks mainly of things that are in the past, and asks questions. She is vengeful, can
fly about in a sieve, and command the winds. Her familiar is a cat named Grimalkin.
 

Second Witch
The Second Witch speaks of present things, rather than past or future. 

Like her sisters, she can command winds. Her familiar is a toad named Paddock.

Third Witch
The Third Witch speaks of future things. Like her sisters, she can command winds.

Character Analysis Macbeth
Macbeth is introduced in the play as a warrior hero, whose fame on the battlefield
wins him great honor from the king. Essentially, though, he is a human being whose
private ambitions are made clear to the audience through his asides and soliloquies
(solo speeches). These often conflict with the opinion others have of him, which he
describes as "golden" (I:7, 33). Despite his fearless character in battle, Macbeth is
concerned by the prophecies of the Witches, and his thoughts remain confused, both
before, during, and after his murder of King Duncan. When Duncan announces that he
intends the kingdom to pass to his son Malcolm, Macbeth appears frustrated. When he
is about to commit the murder, he undergoes terrible pangs of conscience. Macbeth is
at his most human and sympathetic when his manliness is mocked and demeaned by
his wife (see in particular Act I, Scene 7).

However, by Act III, Scene 2, Macbeth has resolved himself into a far more
stereotypical villain and asserts his manliness over that of his wife. His ambition now
begins to spur him toward further terrible deeds, and he starts to disregard and even to
challenge Fate and Fortune. Each successive murder reduces his human
characteristics still further, until he appears to be the more dominant partner in the
marriage. Nevertheless, the new-found resolve, which causes Macbeth to "wade"
onward into his self-created river of blood (Act III, Scene 4), is persistently alarmed by
supernatural events. The appearance of Banquo's ghost, in particular, causes him to
swing from one state of mind to another until he is no longer sure of what is and "what is
not" (I:3,142).

But Macbeth's hubris or excessive pride is now his dominant character trait. This
feature of his personality is well presented in Act IV, Scene 1, when he revisits the
Witches of his own accord. His boldness and impression of personal invincibility mark
him out for a tragic fall.

Macbeth's wife is one of the most powerful female characters in literature. Unlike
her husband, she lacks all humanity, as we see well in her opening scene, where she
calls upon the "Spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" to deprive her of her feminine
instinct to care. Her burning ambition to be queen is the single feature
that Shakespeare developed far beyond that of her counterpart in the historical story he
used as his source. Lady Macbeth persistently taunts her husband for his lack of
courage, even though we know of his bloody deeds on the battlefield. But in public, she
is able to act as the consummate hostess, enticing her victim, the king, into her castle.
When she faints immediately after the murder of Duncan, the audience is left wondering
whether this, too, is part of her act.

Ultimately, she fails the test of her own hardened ruthlessness. Having upbraided her
husband one last time during the banquet (Act III, Scene 4), the pace of events
becomes too much even for her: She becomes mentally deranged, a mere shadow of
her former commanding self, gibbering in Act V, Scene 1 as she "confesses" her part in
the murder. Her death is the event that causes Macbeth to ruminate for one last time on
the nature of time and mortality in the speech "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow"
(Act V, Scene 5).

The king of Scotland should be a figurehead of order and orderliness, and Duncan is
the epitome, or supreme example, of this. His language is formal and his speeches full
of grace and graciousness, whether on the battlefield in Act I, Scene 2, where his talk
concerns matters of honor, or when greeting his kind hostess Lady Macbeth in Act I,
Scene 6. Duncan also expresses humility (a feature that Macbeth lacks) when he
admits his failure in spotting the previous Thane of Cawdor's treachery: "There's no art
to find the mind's construction in the face" (I: 4,11).

Most importantly, Duncan is the representative of God on earth, ruling by divine right
(ordained by God), a feature of kingship strongly endorsed by King James I, for whom
the play was performed in 1606. This "divinity" of the king is made clear on several
occasions in the play, most notably when Macbeth talks of the murdered Duncan as
having "silver skin lac'd with . . . golden blood" (Act II, Scene 3). The importance of royal
blood, that is, the inheritance of the divine right to rule, is emphasized when, in the final
scene, Duncan's son Malcolm takes the title of king, with the words "by the grace of
Grace / We will perform."

Macduff is the archetype of the avenging hero, not simply out for revenge but with a
good and holy purpose. Macduff is the character who has two of the most significant
roles in the play: First, he is the discoverer of Duncan's body. Second, the news of the
callous murder of his wife and children (Act IV, Scene 3) spurs him toward his desire to
take personal revenge upon the tyrannical Macbeth. When he knocks at the gate of
Macbeth's castle in Act II, Scene 3, he is being equated with the figure of Christ, who
before his final ascension into Heaven, goes down to release the souls of the damned
from hell (the so-called "Harrowing of Hell").

Like Macbeth, Macduff is also shown as a human being. When he hears of the death of
his "pretty chickens," he has to hold back his emotions. Even when (in Act IV, Scene
3) Malcolm urges him to "Dispute it like a man," Macduff's reply "I will do so. But I must
also feel it as a man" enables the audience to weigh him against Macbeth, an unfeeling
man if ever there was one. In the final combat between hero and anti-hero, this
humanity is recalled once more when Macduff cries out, "I have no words; my voice is in
my sword." It is his very wordlessness that contrasts with Macbeth's empty rhetoric.

Banquo's role in the original source for Macbeth was as Macbeth's co-

conspirator. In Shakespeare's play, he is depicted instead as Macbeth's rival; the
role of fellow plotter passed to Lady Macbeth. Like Macbeth, Banquo is open to
human yearnings and desires: He is, for example, just as keen to hear what the
Witches have in store for him in Act I, Scene 3. He is kept from sleep by his
dreams of the Witches (Act II, Scene 1). And in his soliloquy at the start of Act III,
Scene 1 — "Thou hast it now . . . " — there is more than a hint of resentment and,
possibly, of the same naked ambition that leads Macbeth astray. Nevertheless,
Banquo is a sympathetic figure for several reasons. First, he is ignorant of what
the audience knows concerning the murder of the king and of his own impending
doom. Second, he is a father whose relationship with his son is clearly an
affectionate one.

With his brother Donalbain, Malcolm quickly ascertains the danger of remaining in
Scotland and flees the country (Act II, Scene 3). By the time he reappears, in Act IV,
Scene 3, he has won the support of Edward the Confessor (king of England), he has
mobilized troops under Northumberland and Siward, and (to borrow a phrase from King
Lear) he is "every inch a king."

If Macduff is the stereotypical revenger, Malcolm is the embodiment of all that is good in
kingship, and this is seen particularly in Act IV, Scene 3, in which he tests the allegiance
of Macduff. His testing of Macduff, although dramatically longwinded, is psychologically
accurate. By pretending to be what he is not, he hopes to coax from Macduff a
confession of his loyalty. This feature of his character — playing a part in order to
strengthen the prospect of good — is in stark contrast to Macbeth, who plays a part in
order to advance his own evil. In the final scene of the play, Malcolm is presented as the
future king. His use of the phrase "by the grace of Grace" indicates the importance that
he attaches to the service of good and reminds the audience of his direct descent from
one who ruled by divine right, as opposed to Macbeth, who usurped the throne. Like his
father Duncan, Malcolm is the representative of order.

MACBETH CHARACTER KEY QUOTES

quote to show that macbeth is i have no spur to prick the sides of
ambitious my intent, but only vaulting ambition

quote to show that macbeth is brave macbeth — well he deserves

brave that name
quote to show that macbeth is will all neptune’s ocean wash this
guilty blood clean from my hand

macbeths goodness makes him

a coward and stops him from too full o’th’milk of human kindness
achieving his ambitions

ambitious but easily lead

astraybrave hero and brutal
macbeth character traits
murdererhe struggles with his
consciencehe is easily influened

quote to show that lady and fill me from the crown to the toe
macbeth is cruel topfull of direst cruelty

quote to show that lady look like th’innocent flower, but be

macbeth is cunning the serpent under ‘t

quote to show that lady she is troubled with thick coming

macbeth is disturbed fancies

lady macbeth links masculinity

Come, you spiritsThat tend on
to strength, shakespeare
mortal thoughts, unsex me
shows that women can be just
here,And fill me from the crown to
as ruthless and cold-hearted as
the toe top-fullOf direst cruelty.
men

cruel and ruthlessambitiousclever

lady macbeth character traits
and quick-witted

quote to show that duncan is let me enfold thee and hold thee to
kind my heart
quote to show that duncan is there is no art to find the minds
trusting construction in the face

quote to show that duncan is a

so clear in his great office
good king

kind but too trustinghe is an

example of a good kingduncan isn’t
Duncan characteristics like other men- he’s not like a
soldier he is less aggressive and
more gentle

quote to show that malcolm is wisdom plucks me from over-

wise credulous haste

quote to show that malcolm is

delight no less in truth than life
honest

learn from their fathers

mistakesaren’t impulsive (they don’t
malcolm and donaldbain
react to the murder
characteristics
immediately)malcolm develops into
a good leader

quote to show that banquo is

that dauntless temper of his mind
brave

quote to show that banquo is noble banquo, that no hast no less

noble deserved

the instruments of darkness tell us

quote to show that banquo is
truths, win us with honest trifles – to
wise
betray’s
 more honourable than
Banquo characteristics macbethdoesn’t trust the
witchesdoesn’t act to protect himself

banquo is perceptive enough to

realise that the witches are
banquo and the supernatural
‘instruments of darkness’ that could
‘win us our harm’

quote to show that macduff is this noble passion, child of my

noble integrity

quote to show that macduff is a i have no words: my voice is my

soldier sword

quote to show that macduff is

i must also feel it as a man
emotional

macduff is honest and sincereputs

his country before his family lady
Macduff(s) characteristics
macduff can’t understand her
husband

quote to show that the witches

instruments of darkness
are evil

quote to show that the witches this supernatural soliciting cannot

are ambiguous be ill, cannot be good

quote to show that the witches

so withered and wild
are strange
quote to show nothing is as it
fair is foul and foul is fair
seems

the witches have supernatural

the witches characteristic powersthey’re evil, but they don’t
tell macbeth to murder duncan