Ambition & the Prophecies
The Witches’ Prophecies (Act 1, Scene 3)
The play’s central conflict is ignited when the three witches deliver their prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo on the heath. They hail Macbeth with three titles: “Thane of Glamis” (his current title), “Thane of Cawdor” (which he does not yet know he has been granted), and “king hereafter.” To Banquo, they offer a paradox: he will be “lesser than Macbeth, and greater” and “not so happy, yet much happier” — his descendants will be kings, but he himself will not.
Shakespeare uses the witches’ paradoxical language to create uncertainty from the start. The prophecies could be a reward or a trap. When Ross arrives to confirm Macbeth’s new title as Thane of Cawdor, the first prophecy comes true immediately — and Macbeth’s thoughts turn instantly to murder: “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, / Shakes so my single state of man.”
The witches never tell Macbeth to kill Duncan. They only predict he will be king. The decision to murder is Macbeth’s own, which raises the central question of the play: fate versus free will.
Macbeth’s ‘Vaulting Ambition’
In his soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 7, Macbeth debates whether to murder Duncan. He lists several reasons not to: Duncan is his king, his kinsman, and his guest — “he’s here in double trust.” He acknowledges that Duncan is a good king whose virtues “will plead like angels.” Yet Macbeth admits that the only thing driving him forward is “vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on th’ other.”
The metaphor of ambition as a horse that leaps too far and crashes on the other side is significant. Shakespeare presents ambition as inherently self-destructive — it contains the seeds of its own downfall. This soliloquy reveals Macbeth as a morally aware character who knows what he is about to do is wrong, making his choice to proceed all the more tragic.
Macbeth begins by wishing the murder could be done without consequences: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly.” The repeated word ‘done’ shows his desperate attempt to convince himself. He imagines Duncan’s virtues pleading “like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep damnation of his taking-off.” The religious language — ‘angels,’ ‘damnation’ — connects murder to eternal punishment. He knows he risks his immortal soul.
The imagery of “pity, like a naked newborn babe, / Striding the blast” contrasts vulnerability with cosmic power. Duncan’s innocence (‘naked newborn babe’) will paradoxically become a powerful force for justice. This foreshadows Macbeth’s downfall — his crime will be exposed and avenged.
Lady Macbeth’s Manipulation
When Macbeth tells his wife he has decided not to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth launches a devastating attack on his masculinity. She calls him a “coward” and asks “When you durst do it, then you were a man.” She uses the conditional ‘durst’ and ‘were’ to imply that his manhood is contingent on action — if he refuses to kill, he is less than a man.
Her most shocking line comes when she declares she would have “dashed the brains out” of her own nursing baby if she had sworn to do so. This disturbing image of infanticide shows how far Lady Macbeth will go to manipulate her husband. She reverses the expected gender roles of the Jacobean period: while Macbeth hesitates, she is decisive and ruthless. Shakespeare presents her as a woman who has deliberately rejected her femininity in order to achieve power.
Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here” speech (Act 1, Scene 5) asks the spirits to remove her femininity and fill her with “direst cruelty.” This is not just a character moment — it reflects Jacobean fears about women who subverted the natural gender hierarchy.
The “Unsex Me Here” Speech (Act 1, Scene 5)
After reading Macbeth’s letter about the prophecies, Lady Macbeth immediately begins planning the murder. Her soliloquy is one of the most powerful speeches in the play. She calls on “spirits that tend on mortal thoughts” to “unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty.” The word ‘unsex’ means to strip away her female nature. She asks the spirits to “stop up the access and passage to remorse” and to replace her breast milk with “gall” (poison).
The speech inverts feminine stereotypes. Where Jacobean society expected women to be gentle and nurturing, Lady Macbeth deliberately rejects these qualities. She associates femininity with weakness and masculinity with the capacity for violence. This subversion of gender roles would have been deeply unsettling to Shakespeare’s audience.
Banquo serves as a foil to Macbeth. He receives a prophecy too (his descendants will be kings), but he does not act on it. Instead, he warns Macbeth that “the instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s / In deepest consequence.” Banquo recognises that the witches may be using truth as bait for a larger deception. His moral restraint contrasts sharply with Macbeth’s immediate turn to thoughts of murder.
Dramatic Irony in Act 1
Shakespeare creates powerful dramatic irony throughout Act 1. When Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s castle, he says “This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air / Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself.” The audience knows he is walking into a death trap. Duncan’s earlier line about the treacherous Thane of Cawdor — “There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face” — is deeply ironic because he immediately places his trust in Macbeth, who will prove even more treacherous.