In Scene 1, Macbeth and Banquo run into each other in the courtyard in the middle of the night. Banquo mentions the witches' prophecy and Macbeth LIES and says he isn't thinking about it at all.
Immediately after Banquo leaves, Macbeth tells his servant to have Lady Macbeth ring a bell when his "drink is ready" which actually means when the guards have been drugged and it is safe to go into Duncan's room to kill him. After the servant leaves, Macbeth launches into his famous soliloquy in which he begins to hallucinate that a dagger is floating in the air in front of him and is floating towards Duncan's room. This brief foray into madness reveals the theme that ambition can be self-destructive. Macbeth is literally coming apart at the seams because he is set on killing his friend just so he can get ahead in life.
Scene 2 takes place right after Duncan's murder. Lady Macbeth is on edge and every sound she hears - a voice from the hall, an owl hooting, etc. - makes her believe they have been caught. She regrets not just killing Duncan herself but admits she couldn't do it because Duncan looked like her own father while he slept.
Macbeth returns from his crime and is distraught. He feels he is cursed because he cannot say the word "amen" and that he heard a voice tell him "Macbeth shall sleep no more." Lady Macbeth calls him a coward and says he should stop thinking about these things because they will drive him crazy. She advises he go wash off and move on with his life. Then, she gets mad because she realizes Macbeth brought the murder weapon back with him.
She tells him to take them back but he refuses. He is too afraid to look at what he has done. In the end, he realizes that who he once was can no longer exist and that he must become a different person in order to live with the murder he has committed.
Scene 3 begins a bit oddly. We start with someone knocking at the gate of Inverness, Macbeth's castle. The porter - sort of like a doorman - has been drinking all night and hears the knocking and makes them into knock-knock jokes. When he does finally answer the door, Lennox and Macduff are there and ask what took the porter so long. The porter informs him he's been drinking and then explains that drinking is great for turning your nose red, sleeping, and peeing a lot, but not great if you are wanting to be romantic with a lady friend. Macbeth arrives and Macduff tells him he is here to meet with Duncan as the king had requested. Macbeth leads Macduff to the king's room. Lennox then tells Macbeth about strange things that happened last night such as wind blowing down people's chimneys, the owl making noise all night, and the earth shaking.
This is where we begin to see a new theme that nature reflects the unnatural deeds of men. When men throw things out of the natural order, nature becomes chaotic.
Macduff then returns having found Duncan's body and says that Macbeth and Lennox should see for themselves and demand that the alarm bell in the castle be rung.
Lady Macbeth is the first to arrive and asks what is happening. Macduff refuses to explain as such a violent and horrific description would be inappropriate for her gentle and sophisticated and feminine character. Of course, we know this to be dramatic irony because Lady Macbeth is anything BUT gentle and sophisticated. She even begs for spirits to remove her feminine qualities so she might become cruel and hard-hearted in the last act!
Macbeth returns and we see him putting on his new facade. He laments that life now means nothing now that his king is dead. When Malcolm and Donalbain arrive, they learn of their father's death. They hold in their emotions at first and simply ask who the guilty party is. Lennox tells them it was the guards who were found asleep with the daggers and covered in Duncan's blood.
Then, Macbeth admits that he immediately killed the guards upon seeing Duncan dead because he was just so enraged. But really, he did it to keep them from snitching.
From here, Lady Macbeth faints and everyone decides to go back inside, get dressed, and get together to get to the bottom of who is responsible for the king's death.
Everyone but Malcolm and Donalbain, that is. The two of them do not seem to have inherited their father's bad judgement. They realize something is seriously amiss and that the thanes are not to be trusted. Instead of staying, they decide to leave immediately and get out of Scotland in order to avoid being murdered themselves. Here, we see that Malcolm and Donalbain are very perceptive and are not so easily trusting.
Finally, in Scene 4, we learn that nature has seriously been going crazy. It is black as night in the middle of the day, an owl killed a falcon (a metaphor for Macbeth killing Duncan), and that all of Duncan's horses broke free from their stalls and ate each other. An old man, Ross, and Macduff discuss these odd occurrences and who could be responsible for Duncan's death and the unnatural events taking place.
Macduff suggests since Malcolm and Donalbain ran away, they may have done it. However, Ross points out that it isn't in Malcolm and Donalbain's personalities to kill their father and that their motive wouldn't make sense either. Malcolm was already going to be heir to the throne, so killing Duncan would have been a foolish idea.
Macduff then states that Macbeth, as the next in line with Malcolm and Donalbain gone, has been crowned king.
Let's see how that works out for him.
Some important points (NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR READING):
- Two new themes appear here
- Ambition can be self-destructive
- Nature reflects the actions of men
- Macbeth has committed to changing into someone who is cold and callous in order to become someone who can deal with the fact that he murdered his friend and king
- Lady Macbeth has already revealed that maybe she isn't as stable in her cold and heartless nature as she wants to be.
- Macbeth is now king. The prophecy has come true. Let's see how things play out from here.
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