Macbeth: Act I
Episode 39
Professor Pipes returns to tackle the infamous Scottish play...Macbeth! This episode she covers Act One's characters, plot, and analysis. Watch to the end for helpful study questions.
Transcript
Introduction:
Hello and welcome to Piper’s Paraphrases. I’m Professor Pipes and I’m here to tell you about Act 1 of The Scottish Play, The Cursed Play, The Play that Shall Not Be Named… Macbeth! That’s right, I’m not scared. Well, anyways, I’d better get right to it.
Characters:
Technically this play is “based on real events,” but kind of in the same way that Sharknado is based on the fact that both tornadoes and sharks exist! So, with that in mind, let’s jump into the characters, both real-ish and entirely made up.
Let’s start out with some major witches, and I do mean that literally. They’re sometimes called the Wayward Sisters or the Weird Sisters, which is interesting, since wyrd, in old English, meant fate, and these Witchy Sisters are much like the three Fates in Greek mythology, as they prophecy about the fates of some of our main characters, including Macbeth.
Now let’s get to that titular character, Macbeth. He’s a brave general and the Thane of Glamis, which basically means he’s like a nobleman for a specific region. He’s a good buddy of the king… for now, at least, but he’s also pretty easily corrupted, as we’ll see.
Next is Macbeth’s Wife, Lady Macbeth, who apparently doesn’t get her own name. What she does get is a DNA test. Turns out she’s 100% that… female dog, if ya know what I mean. She’s cold, calculating, and ambitious and encourages and helps her husband with all sorts of evil deeds.
Duncan is the… current… king of Scotland, and he’s a big fan of Macbeth, who was instrumental in Scotland winning the war that just ended when the play begins. He’s super nice and kind and basically is a pretty great king!
Malcolm and Donalbain are Duncan’s sons, and Malcolm is heir to his throne. Unfortunately, they gotta dip pretty early on in the play.
Banquo is a buddy of Macbeth and another general. He seems generally level-headed, even when he hears a super awesome prophecy.
Macduff is another nobleman who is pretty suss about Macbeth from the start, and we’ll eventually see him rise up against our powerful protagonist, but he’s not actually in this act.
Plot:
The play begins with thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me! Oh, and three witches. They’re planning to meet up again after the battles are over so they can talk with Macbeth! Then they — POOF — disappear.
In scene 2 we get to hear about a battle. I mean, I get it, it would be pretty dang hard to show a war on the stage at the Globe, sooooo…. next best thing, right? Duncan is talking to his sons and an unnamed Captain, who tells us about how terribly the battle was going, until Macbeth killed the traitor Macdonwald. Unfortunately, then the Norwegian troops attacked, but Macbeth was totes ready for them, too. The captain then starts bleeding out, so he’s all, “peace,” just in time for two other noblemen to enter, Angus and Ross. No, Cooper, not that Ross. Come on. Ross tells Duncan that the Thane of Cawdor was a traitor and helped the Norwegian army! Luckily, though, Macbeth, as usual, was super brave and awesome and killed so many guys that the enemy just gave up. Duncan is completely stoked and orders Cawdor to be killed and the title of Thane of Cawdor to be given to Macbeth.
In scene 3 the witches are back and they’re all talking about the mischief they’ve been doing and planning since they last met up. Like, “I’ve been slaughtering pigs, how ‘bout you?” “Witch, please! I’m planning to curse this dude ‘cuz his wife wouldn’t give me a chestnut.” Mwahahaha!! Anyway, Macbeth and Banquo enter and pretty much immediately notice the not so subtle witches. Also, Macbeth mentions that they apparently have beards. Whoops. Lemme add that. Perfect. The three witches, in succession, call Macbeth Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and Future King. While Macbeth stands there speechless, Banquo takes the opportunity to ask the witches what they see in his future. They say that he will be both lesser and greater than Macbeth. Ummm… how does that work? Well apparently it works like this: Banquo won’t be king, but his descendants will! Macbeth then snaps out of it and snaps at the witches, asking them how it’s possible that he will be either the thane of Cawdor OR the king, both of whom are still alive. He orders them to tell him, but instead… they disappear. They’re real good at that. Soon Ross and Angus come in and congratulate Macbeth for his victory and announce that he has been declared thane of Cawdor. Whoo!! As they head out, Macbeth starts thinking to himself about murdering Duncan. Ummm… that escalated quickly!
In scene 4 we head back to Duncan, whose son, Malcolm, is telling him about Cawdor’s execution and Duncan laments that he completely trusted Cawdor. Speaking of people whom the king totally trusts but shouldn’t, Macbeth enters with the other noblemen. Duncan immediately thanks and praises him, and Macbeth responds by saying that it is his honor and duty to do anything and everything to protect him… Riiiiiight… Duncan praises Banquo, too, and then declares his son, Malcolm, the prince of Cumberland! Wooo!! Duncan then says they should all go to Macbeth's castle. With some final flattery, Macbeth leaves to let his wife know. On his way out, he laments to himself that Malcolm is now in his way to becoming king, so he’s gonna have to do something about that… Dun dun DUN! Meanwhile, for maximum irony, Duncan yet again talks about what a great guy Macbeth is.
In scene 5 we meet Lady Macbeth, who is reading a letter from her husband about the witches, their prophecy, and his new title. She worries that Macbeth is too nice to do what is necessary, aka to kill the king. Don’t worry, though, because she’s ready to convince him. Then a servant enters to let Lady Macbeth know that the king is coming tonight. How convenient. Once he leaves, she continues soliloquizing, and it gets dramatic. She asks the spirits to unsex her and fill her with cruelty so she can do the necessary, evil deeds tonight. Aww… what a nice lady. Soon Macbeth arrives and Lady Macbeth gets straight to the point: he has to kill the king tonight, and she’ll make all the preparations.
In scene 6, Duncan arrives at the Macbeth place with a bunch of noblemen and Lady Macbeth greets the king almost as if she weren’t currently plotting his murder. That’s pretty much it.
Finally, in scene 7 they’re prepping for a big ol’ banquet and Macbeth delivers a soliloquy, weighing the pros and cons of killing the king. And just as he’s basically decided against it, who arrives but the conniving Lady Macbeth. She insults him and calls him a coward until he agrees. They have planned to take the knives of Duncan’s servants and kill him with them and then slather the servants in blood so they look guilty. Clever girl. With that, Macbeth is ready, and the act ends.
Analysis:
Now let’s discuss some of the important themes in this act.
We should probably start the same way that the play does, with those infernal witches, who bring into question the idea of Fate. Now fate is a pretty common theme in lots of Shakespeare’s works, and his thoughts on it seem rather complex, which is clearly evident here. The witches call him thane of Glamis, which he already is, as well as thane of Cawdor, and they say he will be the future king. Since the audience already knows that he has, in fact, been made thane of Cawdor, it would seem that their prophecy is correct, that Macbeth’s fate is sealed. However, he does not wait for fate to bring him kingship, as it supposedly, inevitably will. Instead, he and his wife decide to take their destinies into their own hands and force the prophecy to come true, begging the question: is it fate or is it choice? Is Macbeth destined to become king or is it the manipulation of the witches that encourages him to seek this path? The apparent enigma of fate and free will is mirrored in the words of the witches themselves, who speak in paradoxes, saying they will meet “when the battle’s lost and won” that “fair is foul and foul is fair” and that Banquo is “Lesser than Macbeth and greater” AND “Not so happy yet much happier.”
This prophecy, of course, brings us to perhaps the most important theme of the play: the fact that blind Ambition is extremely dangerous. Ambition is the driving force behind both Macbeth and, perhaps even more so, Lady Macbeth. Once the prospect of power is in their sight, they are willing to do anything to achieve it, even murdering the fair, beloved king, who is a relative and whom Macbeth states it’s his absolute honor and privilege to serve. In fact, this idea comes to Macbeth almost immediately after he hears the prophecy. Lady Macbeth sees ambition and evil as going hand in hand, saying that she worries that Macbeth is “not without ambition, but without the illness that should attend it.” Therefore, her ambition causes her to berate and push Macbeth towards what she feels must be done. Meanwhile, Banquo serves as a foil to Macbeth. He also hears an awesome prophecy, and one that he would of course want to come true, but, unlike jerk Macbeth, he doesn’t try to force it… or murder anybody. He is not blinded by ambition and thus does not succumb to the evils that Macbeth does.
Next, let’s talk about the relationship between Appearance and Trust. It is clear in this play that things are not always as they appear. Throughout this act, Duncan keeps talking about how much trust he has in people. Although he says, “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face,” meaning it’s impossible to tell what a person is like by their appearance, he keeps on doing this anyways. In fact, immediately after he says this, Macbeth enters and he compliments the heck out of him, which he continues to do for the rest of the act. Then, when Duncan and Banquo arrive at Macbeth’s, they both talk about how it seems like a super nice place and these birds have nested everywhere, and they only nest in the absolute best places. The audience, however, knows Lady Macbeth’s plan for her and Macbeth to “look like th’ innocent flower but BE the serpent under it.”
Speaking of Lady Macbeth, let’s finish our themes by discussing the complicated relationship between Gender, Power, and Evil. I will, of course, get back to our infamous Lady Macbeth, but first it’s probably worth noting that Macbeth specifically states that the witches look like women, but have beards. Now this could just be a way of showing their “otherness,” hinting at the fact that they are supernatural, but with all the other gender talk going on, I don’t think it was a random choice. These witches are incredibly cruel, discussing death, murder, and torture with ease and even humor. The beards, therefore, might be used to symbolize how this behavior is typically associated with men, something Lady Macbeth clearly believes. In fact, in arguably her most famous soliloquy, she asks the spirits to “unsex me here. And fill me from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty,” meaning she wants to be less womanly so she can be filled with cruelty. ‘Cuz, you know, cruelty is what makes a man a man, right? This image is made even more vivid when she asks these spirits to “come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall,” meaning she wants her breasts to be filled with bitterness or acid, instead of milk. Even Macbeth says that she should give birth to only boys because, “thy undaunted mettle should compose Nothing but males.” Interestingly, even though she equates evil with masculinity, she is arguably a much more cruel character than Macbeth. While he contemplates murder, questions whether the benefits outweigh the associated guilt and evil, and even decides against it at one point, Lady Macbeth never waivers. She tells him, literally, to “be a man” and follow through on his decision to kill Duncan and, in the same breath and in one of her most callous and horrifying lines, says that, if she had made the decision to kill her own baby she would have followed through and “plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out.” Again, I can’t say enough about how wonderful she is. The dating profile writes itself: evil, conniving, and willing to murder both kings and babies. While Lady Macbeth’s gender prevents her from having the same power to act as her husband or the same political power, she seems to be the one pulling the strings. So maybe power and evil are not exclusively male traits.
Food for Thought:
Finally, I’d like to leave you with some food for thought.
First, based on the events in the story so far, what do you think is meant by the witches’ statement “fair is foul, foul is fair”? How is this relevant to the story? Second, what is the purpose or the effect of having this play start with the end of a war? What might this demonstrate or symbolize?
Third, how do Banquo and Macbeth react to the witches themselves and then to the prophecies? What do their reactions demonstrate about each of them?
Fourth, what do you think is the purpose of using paradoxes throughout this act?
Finally, how would you characterize the states of mind of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in this act? Make sure to use evidence to support your answer.
Thanks for watching this episode of Piper’s Paraphrases. Now go forth, read a bunch, and maybe don’t plot to murder the king.
