Question

1. What do the witches predict will happen to Macbeth and Banquo’s family at the beginning of the play?

2. True/False: Macbeth is seen as a hero at the beginning of the story.
3. Who influences Macbeth to kill the king and how do they get away with it?
4. Macbeth hires the characters known as “murderers” to kill what two characters right after killing the king?
5. Whose ghost appears to Macbeth?
6. Where does the ghost sit?
7. What happens to Macduff’s wife and son?
8. Why was Macduff not home when this happened?
9. What does Macbeth think when he hears that he will only be defeated when the trees themselves march against him?
10. Describe how the previous situation actually happens.

11. True/False: Lady Macbeth thinks she sees blood on her hands when it is not actually there.
12. Certain clues lead us believe that Lady Macbeth died by ____________________.
13. How was Macduff not actually “born from a woman?”
14. Who kills Macbeth?
15. Who takes over the throne?
16. How does the weather in the play help set the mood?
17. What country does the majority of the play take place in?
18. Explain what Macbeth means when he says “life is a tale told by an idiot, full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
19. What character dies before Macbeth speaks the line in the previous question?
20. What does this play tell us about being too ambitious?
21. Explain how Macbeth and his wife reverse roles over the course of the play

Answer 1

1. They predict Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and eventually the king. They predict that Banquo will be "lesser than Macbeth, and greater, Not so happy, and yet happier" and that his descendants will be kings although he will not be one.

2. True

3. Lady Macbeth persuades Macbeth to kill King Duncan.

4. Macbeth hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son Fleance to prevent this from happening.

5. The ghost of Banquo

6. He sits in his usual place at the table.

7. His wife and son have been killed.

8. Macduff has gone to England to ask King Edward for help to restore Scotland to how it was before Macbeth became king.

9. Macbeth thinks he is invincible because trees can't march. However he misunderstands this apparition as it is a symbol of Malcom's attack. He thinks this means no one can harm him.

11. True

13. To "be born" meant to be delivered in a normal vaginal delivery. ... So if Macduff was cut from his dead mother's body, he was not born of a woman at all, but was "untimely ripped."

14. Malcolm III

15. Malcolm takes over as king