Macbeth-Act I Study Guide
Directions: Answer the following on a separate sheet of paper. You may confer with your group
on the answers.
1. Shakespeare opens the play with the witches talking on the heath. What atmosphere
and tone are created in the short opening scene? What specific words or phrases are
used to create this feeling?
2. We first hear about Macbeth in Scene 2 through the speeches of the wounded sergeant
as he reports to King Duncan. Our first impression of Macbeth is positive. What words or
phrases are used to create this positive impression?
3. What does Macbeth do or say in Scene 3 to make us question this initial positive
impression?
4. How does the Line “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”, first used in the opening scene and later
in Scene 3, foreshadow the events of the entire act?
5. What kind of person is Lady Macbeth, based on what she has said and done so far?
6. Study carefully Macbeth’s soliloquy at the beginning of Scene 7; “If it were done when
‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.”
a. What is Macbeth’s conflict?
b. What is the effect of Lady Macbeth’s arguments?
7. How exactly do they plan to murder King Duncan?
8. Explain how Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are both fair and foul. (Non-duality)
9. How is the Elizabethan world picture demonstrated in Act I?
10. What elements of the archetypal tragic hero are satisfied in Act I?
Macbeth-Act II Study Guide
Directions: Answer the following on a separate sheet of paper. You may confer with your group
on the answers.
1. An atmosphere of approaching evil and horror is built up in Act II. Much of the horror is
suggested in Macbeth’s famous “dagger” soliloquy in Scene 1 Lines 41-60.
a. Why does Macbeth refer to the dagger as a “fatal vision”?
b. What does having this hallucination just before the murder suggest about his
state of mind?
c. How does this relate to the essay on karmic actions and their fruits?
2. In Scene 2, after the murder of Duncan, Macbeth is troubled by voices he heard or
thought he hears.
a. Why couldn’t he say “amen” when a voice said, “God bless us”?
b. What is a possible meaning of the line “Macbeth does murder sleep”?
c. Macbeth doesn’t want to return to the room of the murdered king. What does
Lady Macbeth say about his fear in Lines 64-66?
3. They symbols of blood and water are interwoven in Lines 66-80 of Scene 2.
a. What does each symbolize?
b. Substitute the symbolic meaning for the words blood and water and reread the
passage. How does this change or heighten your understanding of the passage?
c. How do the reactions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to their bloodstained hands
show us the basic differences of the characters?
4. Throughout Act II, strange and unnatural events occur in nature, evidence of disorder.
List two.
5. What elements of the archetypal tragic hero are satisfied in Act II?
Macbeth-Act III Study Guide
Directions: Answer the following on a separate sheet of paper. You may confer with your group
on the answers.
1. Read Banquo’s soliloquy at the beginning of Act III. What does he suspect about
Macbeth? What gives him hope?
2. Read Macbeth’s soliloquy in Scene 2 Lines 52-77.
a. Why does Macbeth feel it necessary to kill Banquo and his son?
b. What is the meaning of Lines 66-69?
3. There is a change in the relationship between Macbeth and his wife.
a. How have their gender roles and their relationship changed since the beginning
of the play?
b. What does this change show about how Macbeth’s moral state has changed?
4. Study the banquet scene.
a. How was Banquo killed?
b. Describe the ghost’s first appearance.
c. How does Lady Macbeth act to save her husband’s reputation?
d. How are Banquo’s prophesies coming true even in death?
5. By the time of the banquet scene, Macbeth has taken two major steps necessary to
secure the throne for him. This action and the accompanying increase in his tension are
called rising action. Rising action builds toward a climax, or point of most conflict.
a. Explain why the banquet scene is considered to be the climax of the play.
b. What is your prediction for the rest of the play?
c. What elements of the archetypal tragic hero are satisfied in Act III?
d. What is Macbeth learning about karmic actions and their fruits? What is he
ignoring?
Macbeth-Act IV Study Guide
Directions: Answer the following on a separate sheet of paper. You may confer with your group
on the answers.
1. Hecate and the witches call up four separate apparitions for Macbeth.
a. What are they and what does each represent?
b. Which apparition disturbs Macbeth?
2. In Scene 1, Macbeth decides to “deal with” Macduff’s treachery in siding with Malcolm.
a. What does he decided to do?
b. What does this decision say about Macbeth’s moral character?
c. What does it say about his understanding of his prophesies?
d. What element of the archetypal tragic hero does this demonstrate?
3. Read the exchange between Lady Macduff and her son.
a. How would you characterize the son?
b. What does the son symbolize?
c. How would you characterize Lady Macduff?
d. Why would Shakespeare have included this seemingly disconnected dialogue,
rather than just “killing off” the characters behind the scene?
4. In Scene 3, Malcolm and Macduff have a strange conversation.
a. Of what is Malcolm trying to convince Macduff?
b. What does this tell us about his character?
5. What does Macduff decide at the end of Act IV?
6. What element of the archetypal tragedy has been revealed in this last scene?
Macbeth-Act V Study Guide
Directions: Answer the following on a separate sheet of paper. You may confer with your group
on the answers.
1. Read Lines 1-15.
a. What has Lady Macbeth been re-enacting in her sleepwalking state?
b. What does this say about non-duality or the “fair is foul and foul is fair” motif?
c. How does the entire play demonstrate these elements?
2. Think back to the symbolism of blood and water, and to the differing reactions of
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth toward the blood on their hands.
a. How has Lady Macbeth’s attitude changed?
b. What recent event seems to have pushed her over the edge?
c. What does this change tell us about her moral state?
d. How does this square with non-duality?
3. Read Macbeth’s soliloquy at Lines 26-33 in Scene 3.
a. What things will Macbeth be without if he lives any longer?
b. Why won’t he have each of those things?
4. In Lines 62-66 Macbeth asks the doctor for something. What is it? What is ironic about
his request?
5. Read Lines 22-31 in Scene 5.
a. What is Macbeth’s final opinion of “the meaning of life”?
b. How does this relate to existentialism?
6. After Birnam Wood does in fact come to Dunsinane, to what prophesy does Macbeth
cling as his only hope? How is this final hope shattered?
7. What is your final opinion of Macbeth (the character and the play)?