macbeth act 1 scene 7 analysis essay

William Shakespeare

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Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 7 – Summary & Analysis

While the feast is prepared Macbeth wanders anxiously throughout the castle, contemplating the thought of killing the king. He admits it would be easier were he certain that regicide would have no harmful consequences; while he is willing to risk damnation in the afterlife he is aware that on earth bloody actions ‘return/ To plague th’inventor’. After considering why he should not kill the king (he is Duncan’s host, subject and kinsman, and Duncan is unanimously assumed as a fair and great ruler) Macbeth realizes the only reason for killing Duncan is his own ambition, which as mentioned leaves open the possibility of harmful and unwanted consequences. This is not reason enough to justify the act, leaving Macbeth to lament that he has ‘vaulting ambition’ without the necessary ruthlessness and conviction to complete his goals. Lady Macbeth then enters, announcing Duncan has finished the feast and wishes to see Macbeth, who tells his wife that he no longer plans regicide. She is angered and mocks him, calling into question his masculinity, remarking ‘When you durst do it.. then you were a man’ and imploring him to ‘screw courage to the sticking place’. Macbeth asks what would come about if the plan fails but his wife assures him they will be successful if they are committed and bold in their actions, revealing her plan to inebriate the chamberlains, kill the king and smear his blood on the sleeping chamberlains so as to frame them. Macbeth is astonished and admiring of her cunning plan and after agreeing to it tells Lady Macbeth that he hopes she will only give birth to male children, due to the ‘undaunted mettle’ of her plan.

The final scene of the first act reveals much about Macbeth. Firstly, it shows he realizes that what he is doing is wrong, as he considers Duncan’s suitability as a ruler and that he cannot justify the act of regicide. However despite this he still considers the act, wanting the murderous deed to be done, but done quickly: ‘If it were done when ‘tis done, there ‘twere well/ If it were done quickly’ (it could be argued that this links him to the witches once more; he wishes the act to be over before the audience can even register it, in a manner that transcends time, which would be akin to the supernatural actions of the witches). He is willing to risk eternal damnation but fears the consequences on earth, displaying his disregard that the king is God’s representative on earth as the act of regicide will only be truly punished in the afterlife. The scene presents him as tortured between ambition and the consequences of his desire; he realizes the wrongness of his ambition but Lady Macbeth’s ambition drives him on and refuses to allow him to forget this. It seems so far that Macbeth is not an evil man but rather weak; if he had decisiveness this would not necessarily mean he would carry out his plan, but might allow him to challenge his wife. This weakness stretches to the idea of imagination; it can be seen that Lady Macbeth and the witches are strengthening his imagination, forcing him to consider the idea of being king more and more, which Macbeth is becoming unable to ignore.

Points of note

It may be argued that Lady Macbeth is the corrupt centre of the world; while the witches make Macbeth aware of his desirehe is indecisive and it appears possible that he would ignore this had it not been for his wife (that is if we do not consider it fate that Macbeth will become king). Lady Macbeth however will not allow him to forget this desire, instructing him ‘nor time, nor place/ Did then adhere, and yet you would make both./ They have made themselves and that their fitness now/ Does unmake you… screw your courage to the sticking place.’ Elsewhere she even says she would have killed her child if she had sworn to do so in order to make Macbeth honor his earlier agreement to kill the king: ‘how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me, I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums,/ And dash’d the brains out, so I had sworn as you/, have don to this’. In sharp contrast to Macbeth she has no qualms or misgivings about the impending evil deed or that she plans to frame this on another. She openly considers killing the king and going against the natural order, and has no problems having her husband committing such an act despite the possible repercussions in the afterlife (which we can presume she is aware of).

Macbeth’s fall from grace continues; he now openly admits he is deceptive to Duncan who ‘hath honoured me of late, and I have bought/ Golden opinions from all sorts of people… not cast aside so soon.’ This contrasts from earlier when he was restrained in this viewpoint.

The idea of gender arises again in this scene. Lady Macbeth attempts to goad Macbeth into committing the act of regicide by suggesting that to not do so would lead to self-emasculation; she asks ‘Art tho afeard/ To be the same in thine own act and valour/ As thou art in desire… live a coward in thine own esteem… you were a man’ as she believes that masculinity involves being decisive and not cowardly. This leads Macbeth to believe he must commit regicide to retain his masculine state and he thus declares ‘I dare do all that may become a man;/ Who dares do more is none.’

Children are mentioned in this scene, as Macbeth hopes his wife will bear ‘men-children only’ so they will be courageous and decisive like her; this suggests that Lady Macbeth holds masculine traits.

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Macbeth - Act 1, scene 7

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Act 1, scene 7.

Macbeth contemplates the reasons why it is a terrible thing to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth mocks his fears and offers a plan for Duncan’s murder, which Macbeth accepts.

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Macbeth is talking to himself again. He hems and haws over the consequences he’ll face if he decides to commit murder. He knows that killing Duncan could mean bad news for him and just about everyone else in Scotland. When Lady Macbeth enters, he tells her he can’t go through with this sordid plan. But she’s got other ideas. Trying to psych her husband up for some regicide, she tells him he’s not much of a man if he can’t find the courage to kill the king. Then she hatches a plan: they’ll wait until Duncan’s asleep, get his servants drunk, kill the king in his bed, and blame it on the servants. Sounds good to Macbeth—he commits to the plan.

If it would be over once the deed is done, then it would be best to do it quickly. If the murder could somehow gather up and control its own consequences, and Duncan’s death would grant me the success I look for, then right now I would risk whatever happens to me in the afterlife. But for deeds like these, there are repercussions here in this life. We set an example by our bloody deeds, and that teaches others to do the same to us. This type of justice would have us drink our own poison.

The king trusts me in two ways. First, I am his relative and his subject – two good reasons not to do the deed. Secondly, I am his host and should protect him against murderers, not wield the murderer’s knife myself. Besides, Duncan has handled his royal responsibilities so humbly and ethically that his virtues would plead like angels blowing trumpets against his murder. Pity, like baby angels riding the blasts from the angels’ trumpet, will blow the vision of the horrid murder into everyone’s eyes. Everyone will weep so much that they will drown the wind in tears. My only motivation is the kind of soaring ambition which can easily miss its jump and land improperly…

What is it? What’s going on?

Lady Macbeth

He’s almost started dinner. Why did you leave the dining room?

Did he ask for me?

Don’t you know he did?

We’ll go no further with this business. He has given me a lot of honors recently, and all sorts of people have high opinions of me. I should be bathing in this glow now instead of throwing it away so soon.

Was it drunken confidence you felt earlier?  Did this drunken confidence sleep it off and does it now feel hungover and sick thinking back on what it eagerly said before? From now on this is how I’ll measure your love to me. Are you afraid to act as brave as you talk? Are you going to want the crown more than anything else in life but live considering yourself a coward, letting that voice which says, “I dare not” overrule the voice that says, “I will do it”? Are you like the proverbial cat that wants the fish but is afraid to get her feet wet?

Please, stop it!  I am willing to do everything fitting for a man. Anyone who dares to do more is not a man.

Then what kind of animal were you when told me about this plan? When you dare to do it, then you will be a man. And by becoming more than what you are, you will be so much more of a man! Then, when you made these plans, the time and place weren’t yet right, but you would have made them work. Now, when they’ve fallen into place by themselves, you’ve lost your nerve by being provided with the perfect situation. I have nursed a child, so I know how it feels to love the baby who drinks my milk. I would take that baby while it was smiling at me, pull my nipple out of its mouth, and smash its brains out, if I had sworn to kill it as you have sworn to do this deed.

And if we fail?

If we fail! You need to resolve to be courageous, then we won’t fail. When Duncan is soundly asleep –  which should be soon after his hard day’s journey – I’ll get his two servants so drunk with wine and toasting that their minds will be in a fog. Their memories will turn to vapor and their reasoning brains will lose control.  When they’re drunk as pigs, and dead to the world, we can do whatever we want to the defenseless Duncan. What can’t we blame on his drunk servants, who will take the blame for the murder?

You should only have sons so that your fearless genes would only be passed along to male offspring. Once we’ve used the sleeping servants’ daggers for the murder and smeared them with Duncan’s blood, won’t everyone assume they’ve done it?

Who would dare interpret it otherwise? Especially after we have expressed our grief and shock so loudly upon hearing of his death?

I’ve decided. I’ll give it everything I’ve got to see this terrible thing through. Let’s go, and let’s put on a pleasant show. Our lying faces must hide what our lying hearts are about to do.

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by William Shakespeare

Macbeth summary and analysis of act 1, act 1, scene 1.

On a heath in Scotland, three witches, the Weird Sisters, wait to meet Macbeth amidst thunder and lightning. Their conversation is filled with paradox and equivocation: they say that they will meet Macbeth "when the battle's lost and won" and when "fair is foul and foul is fair" (10).

Act 1, Scene 2

The Scottish army is at war with the Norwegian army. Duncan, king of Scotland, meets a captain returning from battle. The captain informs them of Macbeth and Banquo's bravery in battle. He also describes Macbeth's attack on the castle of the treacherous Macdonald, in which Macbeth triumphed and planted Macdonald’s head on the battlements of the castle. The Thanes of Ross and Angus enter with the news that the Thane of Cawdor has sided with Norway. Duncan decides to execute the disloyal thane and give the title of Cawdor to Macbeth.

Act 1, Scene 3

The Weird Sisters meet on the heath and wait for Macbeth. He arrives with Banquo, repeating the witches' paradoxical phrase by stating "So foul and fair a day I have not seen" (36). The witches hail him as "Thane of Glamis" (his present title), "Thane of Cawdor" (the title he will soon receive officially), and "king hereafter" (46-48). Their greeting startles and seems to frighten Macbeth. When Banquo questions the witches as to who they are, they greet him with the phrases "Lesser than Macbeth and greater," "Not so happy, yet much happier," and a man who "shall get kings, though [he] be none" (63-65).

When Macbeth questions them further, the witches vanish into thin air. Almost as soon as they disappear, Ross and Angus appear with the news that the king has granted Macbeth the title of Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth and Banquo step aside to discuss this news; Banquo is of the opinion that the title of Thane of Cawdor might "enkindle" Macbeth to seek the crown as well (119). Macbeth questions why such happy news causes his "seated heart [to] knock at [his] ribs / Against the use of nature," and his thoughts turn immediately and with terror to murdering the king in order to fulfill the witches' second prophesy (135-36). When Ross and Angus notice Macbeth's distraught state, Banquo dismisses it as Macbeth's unfamiliarity with his new title.

Act 1, Scene 4

Duncan demands to know whether the former Thane of Cawdor has been executed. His son Malcolm assures him that he has witnessed the former Thane’s becoming death. While Duncan muses about the fact that he placed "absolute trust" in the treacherous Thane, Macbeth enters. Duncan thanks Macbeth and Banquo for their loyalty and bravery. He consequently announces his decision to make his son Malcolm the heir to the throne of Scotland (something that would not have happened automatically, since his position was elected and not inherited). Duncan then states that he plans to visit Macbeth at his home in Inverness. Macbeth leaves to prepare his home for the royal visit, pondering the stumbling block of Malcolm that now hinders his ascension to the throne. The king follows with Banquo.

Act 1, Scene 5

At Inverness, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from Macbeth that describes his meeting with the witches. She fears that his nature is not ruthless enough-- he's "too full o' th' milk of human kindness” (15)—to murder Duncan and assure the completion of the witches' prophesy. He has ambition enough, she claims, but lacks the gumption to act on it. She then implores him to hurry home so that she can "pour [her] spirits in [his] ear" (24)—in other words, goad him on to the murder he must commit. When a messenger arrives with the news that Duncan is coming, Lady Macbeth calls on the heavenly powers to "unsex me here" and fill her with cruelty, taking from her all natural womanly compassion (39). When Macbeth arrives, she greets him as Glamis and Cawdor and urges him to "look like the innocent flower, / but be the serpent under’t" (63-64). She then says that she will make all the preparations for the king's visit and subsequent murder.

Act 1, Scene 6

Duncan arrives at Inverness with Banquo and exchanges pleasantries with Lady Macbeth. The king inquires after Macbeth's whereabouts and she offers to bring him to where Macbeth awaits.

Act 1, Scene 7

Alone on stage, Macbeth agonizes over whether to kill Duncan, recognizing the act of murdering the king as a terrible sin. He struggles in particular with the idea of murdering a man—a relative, no less—who trusts and loves him. He would like the king's murder to be over and regrets the fact that he possesses “vaulting ambition" without the ruthlessness to ensure the attainment of his goals (27).

As Lady Macbeth enters, Macbeth tells her that he "will proceed no further in this business" (31). But Lady Macbeth taunts him for his fears and ambivalence, telling him he will only be a man when he carries out the murder. She states that she herself would go so far as to take her own nursing baby and dash its brains if necessary. She counsels him to "screw [his] courage to the sticking place" and details the way they will murder the king (60). They will wait until he falls asleep, she says, and thereafter intoxicate his bodyguards with drink. This will allow them to murder Duncan and lay the blame on the two drunken bodyguards. Macbeth is astonished by her cruelty but resigns to follow through with her plans.

Fate, Prophecy, and Equivocation

Just as the Porter in Act 2 extemporizes about the sin of equivocation, the play figures equivocation as one of its most important themes. Starting from the Weird Sisters' first words that open the play, audiences quickly ascertain that things are not what they seem. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the word "equivocation" has two different meanings—both of which are applicable to this play. The first is:

“The using (a word) in more than one sense; ambiguity or uncertainty of meaning in words; also . . . misapprehension arising from the ambiguity of terms.”

This definition as simple verbal ambiguity is the one that audiences are most familiar with—and one that plays an important role in the play. The Porter’s speech on equivocation in Act 2, however, refers to a more active type of equivocation. The second definition in the OED: reads:

The use of words or expressions that are susceptible of a double signification, with a view to mislead; esp. the expression of a virtual falsehood in the form of a proposition which (in order to satisfy the speaker's conscience) is verbally true.

This kind of equivocation is similar to lying; it is intentionally designed to mislead and confuse.

The intentional ambiguity of terms is what we see in the prophesies of the Weird Sisters. Their speech is full of paradox and confusion, starting with their first assertion that "fair is foul and foul is fair" (I i 10). The witches' prophesies are intentionally ambiguous. The alliteration and rhymed couplets in which they speak also contributes to the effect of instability and confusion in their words. For many readers, more than one reading is required to grasp a sense of what the witches mean. It is not surprising, therefore, that these "imperfect speakers" can easily bedazzle and confuse Macbeth throughout the course of the play (I iii 68).

Just as their words are confusing, it is unclear as to whether the witches merely predict or actually effect the future. Banquo fears, for example, that the witches' words will "enkindle [Macbeth] unto the crown"—in other words, that they will awaken in Macbeth an ambition that is already latent in him (I iii 119). His fears seem well-founded: as soon as the witches mention the crown, Macbeth's thoughts turn to murder. The witches’ power is thus one of prophecy, but prophecy through suggestion. For Macbeth, the witches can be understood as representing the final impetus that drive him to his pre-determined end. The prophecy is in this sense self-fulfilling.

The oracular sisters are in fact connected etymologically to the Fates of Greek mythology. The word "weird" derives from the Old English word "wyrd," meaning "fate." And not all fate is self-fulfilling. In Banquo's case, in contrast to Macbeth’s, the witches seem only to predict the future. For unlike Macbeth, Banquo does not act on the witches' prediction that he will father kings—and yet the witches' prophesy still comes true. The role of the weird sisters in the story, therefore, is difficult to define or determine. Are they agents of fate or a motivating force? And why do they suddenly disappear from the play in the third act?

The ambiguity of the Weird Sisters reflects a greater theme of doubling, mirrors, and schism between inner and outer worlds that permeates the work as a whole. Throughout the play, characters, scenes, and ideas are doubled. As Duncan muses about the treachery of the Thane of Cawdor at the beginning of the play, for example, Macbeth enters the scene:

KING DUNCAN: There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built An absolute trust. Enter MACBETH, BANQUP, ROSS, and ANGUS. To MACBETH: O worthiest cousin, The sin of my ingratitude even now Was heavy on me! (I iv 11-16)

The dramatic irony of Duncan’s trust is realized only later in the play. Similarly, the captain in Scene 2 makes a battle report that becomes in effect a prophecy:

For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name!— Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour’s minion Carved out his passage till he faced the slave, Which ne’er shook hands nor bade farewell to him Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’chops, And fixed his head upon our battlements. (I i16-23)

The passage can be interpreted as follows: Macbeth “disdains fortune” by disregarding the natural course of action and becomes king through a “bloody execution” of Duncan; Macduff, who was born from a Caesarian section (his mother being “unseamed. . . from the nave to th’chops”) and who “ne’er shook hands nor bade farewell” decapitates Macbeth and hangs his head up in public.

As in all Shakespearean plays, mirroring among characters serves to heighten their differences. Thus Macbeth, the young, valiant, cruel traitor/king has a foil in Duncan, the old, venerable, peaceable, and trusting king. Lady Macbeth, who casts off her femininity and claims to feel no qualms about killing her own children, is doubled in Lady Macduff, who is a model of a good mother and wife. Banquo's failure to act on the witches' prophesy is mirrored in Macbeth's drive to realize all that the witches foresee.

Similarly, much of the play is also concerned with the relation between contrasting inner and outer worlds. Beginning with the equivocal prophecies of the Weird Sisters, appearances seldom align with reality. Lady Macbeth, for example, tells her husband to "look like the innocent flower, / but be the serpent under’t" (63-64). Macbeth appears to be a loyal Thane, but secretly plans revenge. Lady Macbeth appears to be a gentle woman but vows to be "unsexed" and swears on committing bloody deeds. Macbeth is also a play about the inner world of human psychology, as will be illustrated in later acts through nightmares and guilt-ridden hallucinations. Such contrast between "being" and "seeming" serves as another illustration of equivocation.

The Macbeths and The Corruption of Nature

One of the most ambiguous aspects of the play is the character of Macbeth himself. Unlike other Shakespearean villains like Iago or Richard III , Macbeth is not entirely committed to his evil actions. When he swears to commit suicide, he must overcome an enormous resistance from his conscience. At the same time, he sees as his own biggest flaw not a lack of moral values but rather a lack of motivation to carry out his diabolical schemes. In this he resembles Hamlet, who soliloquizes numerous times about his inaction. But unlike Hamlet, Macbeth does not have a good reason to kill, nor is the man he kills evil—far from it. And finally, while Macbeth becomes increasingly devoted to murderous actions, his soliloquies are so full of eloquent speech and pathos that it is not difficult to sympathize with him. Thus at the heart of the play lies a tangle of uncertainty.

If Macbeth is indecisive, Lady Macbeth is just the opposite—a character with such a single vision and drive for advancement that she brings about her own demise. And yet her very ruthlessness brings about another form of ambiguity, for in swearing to help Macbeth realize the Weird Sisters' prophecy, she must cast off her femininity. In a speech at the beginning of Scene 5, she calls on the spirits of the air to take away her womanhood:

Come you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, Stop up th'access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th'effect and it. (I v 38-45)

Lady Macbeth sees "remorse" as one of the names for feminine compassion—of which she must rid herself. Thus she must be "unsexed." This does not mean, however, that in rejecting her femininity she becomes manly. Instead, she becomes a woman devoid of the sexual characteristics and sentimentality that make her a woman. She becomes entirely unnatural and inhuman. Like the supernatural Weird Sisters with their beards, Lady Macbeth becomes something that does not fit into the natural world.

The corruption of nature is a theme that surfaces and resurfaces in the same act. When Duncan greets Macbeth, for example, he states that he has “begun to plant thee and will labor / to make thee full of growing" (I iv 28-29). Following the metaphor of the future as lying in the “seeds of time,” Macbeth is compared to a plant that Duncan will look after (I iii 56). By murdering Duncan, then, Macbeth perverts nature by severing himself effectively from the very "root" that feeds him. For this reason, perhaps, the thought of murdering Duncan causes Macbeth's heart to "knock at [his] ribs / Against the use of nature" (I iii 135-36). Just as the Weird Sisters pervert the normal course of nature by telling their prophecy, Macbeth upsets the course of nature by his regicide.

Reflecting the disruption of nature, the dialogue between Macbeth and Lady in the scene following the murder becomes heavy, graceless, and almost syncopated. Lady Macbeth, for example, says:

What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'd'st have, great Glamis, That which cries "Thus thou must do," if thou have it, And that which rather thou dost fear to do, Than wishest should be undone. (I v 28-23).

The repetition of the phrase "thou wouldst," in all its permutations, confounds the flow of speech. The speech is clotted with accents, tangling meter and scansion, and the alliteration is almost tongue-twisting, slowing the rhythm of the words. Just as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have corrupted nature, the language Shakespeare uses in these scenes disrupts the flow of his usually smoothly iambic meter.

Yet another part of the theme of corruption of nature lies in the compression of time that occurs throughout the act. When Lady Macbeth reads Macbeth’s letter, she states: Th[ese] letters have transported me beyond / This ignorant present, and I feel now / The future in the instant" (I v 54-56). By telling the future to Macbeth and Banquo, the Weird Sisters upset the natural course of time and bring the future to the present. Thus when Macbeth vacillates over whether or not to kill Duncan, he wants to leap into the future: "If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well / It were done quickly" (I vii 1-2). He wants the murder to be over quickly—indeed so quickly that it is over before the audience even registers it. Just as equivocation twists the meaning of words, Macbeth's murderous desires twist the meaning of time.

Thus beginning with the Weird Sisters, equivocation in all its permutations is threaded throughout the fabric of the first act. Over the course of the play, the breach between the worlds of reality and illusion that is the core of equivocation grows ever wider.

Macbeth Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Macbeth is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

The third which says that Banquo's sons shall be kings, Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3 questions

What is significant about the first words that Macbeth speaks in the play?

A motif or recurring idea in the play is equivocation. There is the balance of the dark and the light, the good and the bad. Macbeth's first line reflects this. It...

What news took the wind out of Macbeth's invincibility?

Macbeth rethinks his invincibility when MacDuff tells him that he was torn from his mother's womb.

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Macbeth:Act 1,scene 7

Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare telling the audience the importance of king and at the same time defines the right “King”. This is the main theme about the extract where Macbeth is outpouring of confusion and conscience about killing Duncan– “with his surcease, success”, he is not sure about what he wants or whether this is the kind of success he wants. He is concerned that the consequences he would face would be vast, and that there are many reasons why he should not carry “the deed” of murdering Duncan. This is Macbeth’s first soliloquy exploring his character on the basis of the judgments but through out the soliloquy he is very undeceive. Shakespeare depicts the moral decline of Macbeth. We know his first thoughts on the matter, because of the haphazard way in which they are expressed. I will show how the language used provides imagery and detailed analysis of Macbeth’s state of mind.

After listening to witches prophecies and realizing that they come true, Macbeth’s ambition of becoming a king tries to overshadow his morals. He starts having thoughts of achieving his ambition by killing King Duncan. He thinks that if there would be no problems or consequence of killing Duncan then it was the right time to kill him and he needs to it quickly. However, Macbeth is not sure about doing it and says “ if it were done” which is a strong euphemism for murder that is different from what he has been doing on the battlefield. This euphemism shows that the “horrid deed” abhors him, as he knows that regicide is a sin. He wants to “trammel up the consequences” along with Duncan’s death and get the glory of becoming the king. The mere obstacle he faces in making a decision about “the deed” is the fact that he is familiar with the consequences. He wants to “trammel up” which is a metaphor for entangling in a net or killing the consequences along with King Duncan. Macbeth just wants to avoid the consequences of murdering the king, but he is then reminded by his conscience that although he might succeed in getting away with want he wants “here” on Earth but he will have to pay the cost in “ the life to come”.  Macbeth says that afterlife is like an ocean whereas compared to it life is merely a “bank” or “shoal”. Metaphors like “bank and shoal” and euphemism of afterlife through “jump the life to come” show the presence of Macbeth’s conscience and fears. Macbeth finds himself in dilemma where he has to choose between his ambitions of becoming a king and his morals which tells him that a regicide is a sin. He thinks that if chooses to kill Duncan and favors violence than it might come back “to plague” him, so that he who kills a king to gain the throne teaches his “bloody instructions” to others -- a method that will return to hurt the one who first decided to commit regicide. He realizes that if he kills King Duncan to fulfill his greed for power and becoming a king than someone else might do the same with him while he governs the throne. He understands that by poisoning Duncan he would poison himself indirectly. He refers to a “chalice” which is an image for life, light, good. However, Macbeth talks about a “poisoned chalice,” which leads to the opposite connotations: death as opposed to life, darkness as compared to light, evil instead of good.

Another reason for Macbeth to not murder Duncan is because Duncan double trusts Macbeth- as “his kinsman and his subject” and as a host it is his duty to “shut the door” against murderers and protect Duncan, not to “bear the knife [him] self.” He struggles in particular with the idea of murdering a man—a relative, no less—who trusts and loves him.

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 During Macbeth’s battle with his conscience and morals, we come across one of the important themes of the play that is what and who makes a right king. Macbeth tells the audience that Duncan is born with “faculties” indicating his qualities of being kind, gentle, and honest and a dedicated king. He gives the audience a strong image of Duncan by stating that he is a gentleman strong as a king, full of  “virtues” which makes it hard for him to kill him. Macbeth also uses spiritual reasoning against the murder. He claims that heaven will cry out “trumpet-tongued” against the deep damnation of Duncan’s “taking off”- euphemism for Duncan’s death and everyone would know about the “horrid deed”. This also indicates that Macbeth believes that such a horrifying deed would result in him “jumping the life to come,” that he would face punishment for eternity in hell. He thinks that Duncan’s virtue would take a revenge of his death whereas the slaughter of such a deserving King will make the whole nation grieve and the tears of all will come as a downpour. Macbeth shows that he still has a conscience through the way he delivers this soliloquy. His use of euphemisms shows his anguish at the thought of murder.

Macbeth finally decides that his mere motivation of doing “the deed” is his ambition which he compares to a horse. A horse despite being very strong and powerful can still “overleap itself” or be over ambitious leading to its downfall. At the end of this soliloquy, Macbeth is still indecisive. He wants to be king, but does not want the unavoidable consequences of regicide. Throughout the soliloquy, Macbeth’s conscience is permanent.

Lady Macbeth interrupts him and he says that “[they] will proceed no further in this business”. Macbeth tells her that he is happy with his new honor of being the Thane of Cawdor and wants to enjoy the honor of serving Duncan and “Not cast aside so soon.” However, Lady Macbeth gets outraged and says to Macbeth that he can only dream about being a king when he is drunk. He tells him that he is going back on his words and not “account[ing] thy love.” She accuses him of being “afeard” and insults him by calling him a “coward.” She says that Macbeth is “like the poor cat i’th’adage” who wants to get the fish but doesn’t want to get wet and spends the time thinking and not doesn’t jump into the water. She wants Macbeth to kill Duncan and not spend time thinking about it.

Shakespeare shows that Macbeth’s state of mind is changing, his conscience is pre-eminent, showing that he still has reason in his thoughts. However, in the end he is overcome by his ambition with Lady Macbeth’s influence. This shows the effects that this constant goading and degradation has had on Macbeth since the first soliloquy as he then decides to carry on “the deed.” This is what makes Macbeth one of the most tragic character in English Literature.

Document Details

• Word Count 1171
• Page Count 3
• Level International Baccalaureate
• Subject Languages

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Macbeth - Constructing and Writing an Essay Answer (Act 1 Scene 7)

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

18 May 2024

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This is a step by step guide to constructing and writing an essay answer to an extract from Act 1 Scene 7 of Macbeth. The question focuses around how Shakespeare presents Macbeth’s fears and doubts (about killing King Duncan).

The lesson breaks down the task of constructing an answer into a series of steps. Together with examples, students can construct their answer in a safe environment, guided through the process explicitly. Once ideas are formulated, students are then guided on how to write up their ideas with clarity, ensuring that the assessment objectives are met.

I’ve used this with equal success with both HA and LA classes, and it’s surprising just how much students are able to write once the process is modelled to them in this way.

I’d love a review if you download, I hope it saves you some time :)

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