Macbeth Summary

Macbeth is not divided into chapters but into 5 acts. Here is the act-by-act breakdown of Macbeth:

Act 1

• The three witches meet and plan to encounter Macbeth
• Returning from battle, Macbeth and Banquo hear the witches hail Macbeth as future king and promise Banquo's descendants will be kings
• Duncan names Macbeth Thane of Cawdor; Lady Macbeth reads his letter and resolves that he must murder the king
• Duncan arrives as a guest, and Lady Macbeth persuades a wavering Macbeth to kill him

Act 2

• Macbeth sees a vision of a bloody dagger, then murders the sleeping King Duncan
• Duncan's body is discovered; his sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee, and suspicion falls on them
• Macbeth is proclaimed king

Act 3

• Fearing the witches' promise to Banquo, Macbeth has him murdered, though Banquo's son Fleance escapes
• Banquo's ghost appears to Macbeth at a royal banquet, unnerving him before his guests

Act 4

• The witches show Macbeth apparitions: beware Macduff, no man "of woman born" can harm him, and he is safe until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane
• Macbeth has Macduff's wife and children killed
• In England, Malcolm and Macduff plan to overthrow Macbeth; Macduff learns his family has been slaughtered

Act 5

• Wracked by guilt, Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and tries to wash imaginary blood from her hands, then dies
• The English army advances using branches from Birnam Wood as camouflage, fulfilling the prophecy
• Macduff, born by caesarean and so not "of woman born," kills Macbeth, and Malcolm is proclaimed the rightful king

This summary of Macbeth by William Shakespeare begins on a stormy heath, where three witches plan to meet the Scottish general Macbeth. Fresh from a victorious battle, Macbeth and his friend Banquo encounter the witches, who greet Macbeth as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and "king hereafter." They also tell Banquo that his descendants will be kings, though he will not be one himself. When Macbeth is almost immediately named Thane of Cawdor by King Duncan, the first prophecy comes true, and the idea of becoming king takes root in his mind.

Macbeth writes to his wife about the witches' words. Lady Macbeth, even more ambitious than her husband, fears he is "too full of the milk of human kindness" to seize the crown. When Duncan announces he will spend the night as a guest in their castle, she seizes the opportunity and urges Macbeth to murder him. Macbeth hesitates, torn by conscience and loyalty, but Lady Macbeth questions his manhood and lays out the plan, and he agrees.

That night, in a hallucinatory daze, Macbeth sees a floating dagger leading him toward Duncan's chamber and then kills the sleeping king. Shaken, he forgets to leave the daggers with the drugged guards, so Lady Macbeth must return them and smear the guards with blood to frame them. When the murder is discovered the next morning, Macbeth kills the grooms in feigned fury, and Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee the country, fearing for their lives. Their flight casts suspicion on them, and Macbeth is crowned king.

But the crown brings no peace. Remembering that the witches promised the throne to Banquo's line, Macbeth grows obsessed with securing his power. He hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance, but while Banquo is slain, Fleance escapes, leaving the prophecy alive. At a state banquet, Macbeth is tormented when Banquo's blood-soaked ghost appears in his seat, visible only to him, and his wild reaction alarms the assembled nobles.

Desperate for certainty, Macbeth seeks out the witches again. They conjure apparitions that seem to reassure him: he should beware Macduff, but no man "of woman born" shall harm him, and he will not be defeated until Birnam Wood marches to his castle at Dunsinane. Feeling invincible, Macbeth becomes a bloody tyrant. Learning that Macduff has fled to England to join Malcolm, he orders the massacre of Macduff's wife and children, an act of pure cruelty that turns the country against him.

As told in this Macbeth book summary, the tyranny sets Scotland's nobles and the exiled Malcolm and Macduff against Macbeth. In England, Malcolm tests Macduff's loyalty before they raise an army. When Macduff receives the news that his family has been butchered, his grief hardens into a determination to take personal revenge on Macbeth.

Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth, once the driving force behind the murders, is destroyed by guilt. She sleepwalks through the castle, obsessively trying to wash imaginary bloodstains from her hands and reliving the crimes aloud. Her collapse mirrors the moral ruin that ambition has brought on them both, setting the stage for the final reckoning.

Macbeth ends with the tyrant's downfall and the fulfillment of the witches' riddling prophecies. As the rebel and English armies close in on Dunsinane, word reaches Macbeth that his wife is dead, most likely by suicide. He responds with the bleak "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech, concluding that life is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Then the prophecies unravel. The advancing soldiers cut down branches from Birnam Wood to hide their numbers, so that the forest literally appears to move toward Dunsinane, just as the witches foretold. Macbeth still clings to the belief that no man "of woman born" can kill him.

In the final battle, Macbeth faces Macduff. When Macbeth boasts of his charmed life, Macduff reveals that he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped," meaning he was born by caesarean section and so was not, in the prophecy's terms, "of woman born." The two fight, and Macduff kills Macbeth, cutting off his head. The conclusion of this summary of Macbeth restores order: Malcolm, Duncan's rightful heir, is hailed as the new King of Scotland, ending the cycle of bloodshed that Macbeth's ambition began.

Here are some of the most famous quotes from Macbeth by William Shakespeare. These verbatim lines capture the play's themes of ambition, guilt, fate, and the emptiness that follows unchecked power:

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

"Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?"

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?"

"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"

"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day."

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more."

These Macbeth quotes are among the most quoted lines in English literature and are central to why the play endures on stage and in classrooms.