Macbeth Mind Map (GCSE)

The witches predict that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and then king. Duncan makes him Thane of Cawdor, and Lady Macbeth persuades him to kill Duncan.

Macbeth murders Duncan in his sleep. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee, so suspicion falls on them and Macbeth is crowned.

Macbeth has Banquo murdered, but Banquo's son Fleance escapes. Banquo's ghost appears at the banquet and Macbeth's guilt and paranoia are exposed.

The witches' apparitions give Macbeth new prophecies that seem to make him safe. Macduff joins Malcolm in England, and Macbeth has Macduff's wife and children murdered.

Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, overcome by guilt, and dies. The prophecies come true in unexpected ways, Macduff kills Macbeth, and Malcolm becomes king, restoring order.

A brave soldier whose ambition, encouraged by the witches and his wife, becomes his ruin. Guilt and paranoia drive him to more violence. A tragic hero whose fatal flaw is his vaulting ambition.

Manipulative and ruthless at first, she challenges Macbeth's masculinity to push him to murder. Later she is undone by guilt, and the sleepwalking scene shows her collapse.

Hears the same prophecies as Macbeth but does not act on them. A foil to Macbeth who shows that the prophecies did not have to lead to murder.

Supernatural figures whose prophecies set the tragedy in motion. They raise the question of whether Macbeth's fate is decided for him or chosen.

Loyal to Scotland rather than to Macbeth. He loses his family, kills Macbeth, and helps restore justice.

Unchecked desire for power leads to moral decay and destruction. Macbeth's vaulting ambition is his main motive and his fatal flaw.

Blood imagery, hallucinations and lost sleep chart the Macbeths' mental decline. Macbeth asks whether "all great Neptune's ocean" could wash Duncan's blood from his hand.

Duncan represents rightful kingship and Macbeth the tyrant. Killing a king breaks the natural order, and chaos follows until Malcolm restores it.

Characters hide evil behind innocent faces, and the witches' words are never quite what they seem.

The witches, the floating dagger and Banquo's ghost. They raise the question of fate against free will: are the Macbeths driven by prophecy, or do they choose?

Lady Macbeth rejects the expected female role and attacks her husband's manhood to push him to murder.

The Witches, Act 1 Scene 1. Opens the theme of appearance and reality, and a world where moral boundaries are blurred and reversed.

Lady Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 5: "Look like th' innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't". Deception and appearance against reality.

Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 7: "I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition". He admits ambition is his only motive.

Macbeth, Act 2 Scene 1. A hallucination before the murder that shows the supernatural and his troubled mind.

Lady Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 1, while sleepwalking. She cannot wash away imagined blood: guilt has destroyed her.

Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5, after Lady Macbeth's death. Despair, and a sense that life has lost its meaning.

The play was written around 1606, early in James's reign. Banquo was thought to be James's ancestor, so he is shown as noble.

Kings were believed to be chosen by God and to sit at the top of the Great Chain of Being. Killing one was a terrible sin that broke the natural order.

James wrote Daemonologie (1597) about witches, and many people feared them. The witch scenes played on those fears.

The failed plot to blow up James in 1605 made treason and regicide a recent, real fear for the audience.

Women were expected to be obedient. Lady Macbeth's power and her challenge to her husband's masculinity would have unsettled a Jacobean audience.

A hero brought down by a fatal flaw (hamartia), here his ambition.

Give us direct access to Macbeth's conscience and show his progression from doubt to resolve to despair.

Recurring images link the characters' inner states with moral and natural disorder:

• Blood: guilt
• Darkness: evil
• Sleep: innocence and peace
• Clothing: stolen power

The witches speak in rhyming chants that set them apart. Lady Macbeth speaks in prose in the sleepwalking scene, showing that her mind has broken down.

Duncan trusts Macbeth completely while the audience already knows he plans to kill him.