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- Who is the protagonist?
- Who is the antagonist?
- Who do you sympathize with in this play? Protagonist or antagonist? How does this affect your enjoyment of the play?
- Macbeth begins with three witches chanting "fair is foul and foul is fair" (I.i.10). What is Shakespeare telling us about the play in this opening line?
- How do the witches' prophecies set Macbeth and Banquo against each other?
- How do Banquo and Macbeth respond differently to the witches' prophecy? What does this say about each of them?
- To what extent is Lady Macbeth responsible for Duncan's murder? Are she and Macbeth equal partners in crime?
- Whose ambition is the driving force of the playMacbeth’s or Lady Macbeth’s?
- What other crimes is Macbeth forced to commit in order to cover up the murder of Duncan?
- Describe two ways in which the director of this play could represent the ghost of Banquo in the banquet scene.
- Is there really a ghost or does he exist only in Macbeth's mind?
- Are there supernatural forces at work in this play? If so, what do they want?
- What causes Lady Macbeth's breakdown?
- What key events take place offstage? Is this a weakness in the play?
- How does Macbeth evolve over the course of the play?
- At the end of the play, Macduff kills Macbeth in a scene easily interpreted as the victory of Good over Evil. Is this an accurate characterization? Or is there a certain moral ambiguity in this play?
- Is Macbeth wholly evil?
- Is Macduff wholly good?
- Before she dies, Lady Macduff complains of her husband's "unnatural" behavior in abandoning wife and children and calls him a "traitor" (IV.ii.9). Is her anger justified?
- Are the witches' prophecies, at the beginning of the play, binding? Is Macbeth trapped by destiny, a victim of fate, or does he make his own choices?
- In some respects, Macbeth is a meditation on "manhood." It explores "natural" and "unnatural" gender behavior, offering varying views on what constitutes real "manhood." How do the various characters in the play define "manhood"?
- Another important theme in Macbeth is the idea of political legitimacy, of the moral authority that some kings possess and others lack. What makes Duncan a good king and Macbeth a tyrant?
- Does Macbeth have a tragic flaw? If so, what?
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