Everything on the GCSE English Literature Macbeth: Key Characters Explained poster is written out below, section by section. Use it to search the sheet, copy parts into your own notes, or check a fact quickly.
Macbeth
- Scottish general who hears the witches' prophecy and acts on his ambition.
- Murders Duncan to take the crown.
- The killing collapses him psychologically before the throne is even secure.
- Turns paranoid tyrant: he orders Banquo's murder and has Macduff's family killed.
- Ends nihilistic and alone, killed by Macduff.
Write about
Macbeth as a tragic hero destroyed by ambition: the witches tempt him, but his own choices turn him from loyal soldier into tyrant.
Lady Macbeth
- Macbeth's wife, and the play's most ruthless voice in the early acts.
- Calls on dark spirits to unsex her and pushes Macbeth by attacking his manhood.
- Steadies him after Duncan's murder, but he soon starts keeping his decisions from her.
- Sleepwalks in Act 5, reliving the killings.
- Dies offstage; her suicide is implied.
Write about
Lady Macbeth as a challenge to Jacobean ideas about gender: she rejects femininity and pushes Macbeth towards violence, but guilt eventually destroys her.
Banquo
- Macbeth's fellow general.
- Hears the same prophecy but resists it.
- Names his own dark temptations but chooses restraint.
- Killed by Macbeth's hired murderers, though his son Fleance escapes.
- Returns as a ghost only Macbeth can see.
Write about
Banquo as Macbeth's moral contrast: he hears the same prophecy but resists temptation, showing Macbeth is responsible for his actions.
Macduff
- Thane of Fife.
- Suspects Macbeth early and flees to England.
- His wife and children are killed on Macbeth's orders.
- Insists grief is something a man must feel, opposing Lady Macbeth's idea of manhood.
- Kills Macbeth, fulfilling the prophecy that none born of woman can harm him.
Write about
Macduff restoring justice: he sees Macbeth's tyranny, grieves for Scotland and his family, then kills Macbeth to restore rightful rule.
Duncan
- King of Scotland, and the play's image of legitimate, virtuous rule.
- Trusts both the traitor Cawdor and his murderer Macbeth, mistaking surface for substance.
- Act 2: murdered in his sleep by Macbeth, at Macbeth's castle.
Write about
Duncan as the image of rightful kingship: his murder shows Macbeth's betrayal of loyalty, nature, political order, and God.
The witches
- Three supernatural figures who open the play.
- Catalysts of Macbeth's ambition, not its cause.
- Greet Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and king to come, and tell Banquo his sons will reign.
- Conjure apparitions in Act 4 whose half-truths drive Macbeth's fall.
Write about
The witches as agents of temptation, not controllers of fate: they plant ideas, but Macbeth chooses to act on them.