At the end of that scene, Macbeth first thinks of murdering the king: “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical.” Then, he learns from Duncan’s palace that the Duke of Cumberland (this signifies the next in line to the throne, like the Prince of Wales in England) is Malcolm, the king’s eldest son. When Macbeth hears of this, he realises that this means that it will be very hard for him to become king:
“The Prince of Cumberland! This is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap,
For in my way it lies.”
In his letter to Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Sc5, Macbeth writes that to become king, he has to murder the king. When he mentions that the king is coming to stay at their castle, when Macbeth replies to her question with “ The king is leaving tomorrow, as he purposes”, Lady Macbeth says “Never” This signifies that they are going to kill the king while he is at their castle, and that he will not make it to his desired location.
In Act 1 Sc7, Macbeth is showing signs of backing down to the idea of murdering the king until his wife forces him to do it by questioning his manhood: And live a coward in tine own esteem”. This virtually forces him to do it.
When he is talking to Banquo in Act 2 Sc1, he hardly addresses him as a friend and he speaks in long, formal sentences. This gives you and idea that something is going to happen.
In the first two scenes in act 2, Macbeth thinks that he can hear noises, which are only hallucinations in his head:
“There’s one did laugh in his sleep, and cried ‘Murder!’
That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
But they did say their prayers, and addressed them
Again to sleep.”
By the time he has murdered the king, the audience thinks of him now more as a noble hero, but can sympathise with him, and understand his motives. It is how he follows it up that the audience will dislike and it sets the seed of the murdering coward that eventually takes over him:
“To know my deed, ‘twere best not know myself.”
Macbeth now starts acting strange in private and Lady Macbeth is the only thing that seems to be protecting Macbeth from insanity:
“These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad”
The action that Macbeth does that makes him least popular with the audience is the murdering of Banquo. Even more than that, he didn’t have the stomach to do it himself. This shows that Macbeth has a Machiavellian character and that he would murder his own grandmother to preserve his reign. Because he murdered his best friend, Macbeth sends out signals that no one will be spared and that the only way that hey can rule for long is by killing everyone in his way. By doing this, he only stays in power by fear.
At the banquet, his frailties in private erupt into public like a volcano. At the start, he assumes the role of the noble hero that most of the people knew him as, but soon he spot a bloody servant hanging around shadily near the door. He went over there and spoke to the shady man and learnt of the brutal murder of Banquo. It was only then that he realised quite what he had done. Then, whenever he mentioned Banquo’s name, he had hallucinations about Banquo’s bloody, decapitated ghost. On seeing this he went into mindless raves:
“The table’s full” and “The gory locks at me.”
It is here that Lady Macbeth realises that all is not well and decides to step in and take control of things. In the end, she just dismisses the lords in an unceremonious fashion. This surprises the lords because it was very unusual for them to be dismissed in such fashion. This leaves them dazed and confused about the happenings:
“Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.”
Macbeth decides that the only way to go forward is to consult the witches. The witches give him some half-truthful facts to reassure him. They say that the only person that he needs to worry him is Macduff:
“Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff,”
Also they say that he cannot be killed by anyone born of woman and that his reign shall end when:
”Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against.”
Macbeth takes this to mean that he is untouchable. Knowing that he is virtually invincible, he gets some murderers to search and destroy Macduff. He sends them to Macduff’s castle. What the murderers do here is the most horrible and detestable act in the whole play. The murderers run wild in Macduff’s home slaughtering every living thing in it. Macduff’s defenceless wife, children and servants are all slaughtered like diseased sheep:
“…Your wife and babes
Savagely slaughtered…”
“Wife, children servants and all that,
Could be found.”
Lady Macbeth, left in the cold about the happenings in Scotland, has been driven to insanity. She would aimlessly sleepwalk around the castle. Eventually, she died of the madness. When Macbeth hears of the death of his wife, he realises that he is all on his own. He doesn’t seem to take the news to badly on the outside, but I believe that it wounded him on the inside.
An English force, led by Malcolm, Siward and Macduff discuss how they are going to storm the fortress at Dunsinane at a camp near Birnam wood. What their plan was that they would each carry a branch from the wood to disguise their numbers of soldiers from Macbeth so that he would fight because he was facing a small army. Also, even though the leaders of the rebel army didn’t know it, they were also not breaking the witches predictions. It is at this point that Macbeth realises he has two choices: Stand and fight or surrender and be mocked. He decides to fight:
“I’ll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked.”
By doing this, Macbeth restores himself as the noble hero in the eyes of the audience.
Macbeth comes across young Siward and they fight until Siward is slain. By doing this, Shakespeare makes the audience definitely think of Macbeth as a courageous, noble warrior. Then Macbeth and Macduff meet and fight. It is during the fight that Macbeth realises that Macduff was not born of woman as he was:
“Untimely ripped from his mother’s womb.”
Macbeth says that he will not fight Macduff, but soon changes heart, an says:
“Why should I play the roman fool and die on my own sword”
In the following fight, Macbeth is killed fighting. This shows that he didn’t want to die a coward but as a fighter.