Ad-free experience
Study Guides for 1,000+ titles
Full Text content for 250+ titles
No Fear Translations of Shakespeare’s plays (along with audio!) and other classic works
Flashcards
Mastery Quizzes
Infographics
Graphic Novels
AP® Practice & Lessons
Note-taking
Bookmarking
Dashboard
What happens in Act 3, Scenes 1–3 of Macbeth?
In Scene 1 of Act 3, Macbeth worries that if the witches’ prophecies continue to come true, Banquo’s children will overthrow him and take the throne, so he hires murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance. In Scene 2, Macbeth advises Lady Macbeth to be kind to Banquo at the evening’s feast, so Banquo will be lured into a false sense of security. In Scene 3, the murderers hired by Macbeth ambush Banquo and Fleance. Banquo is killed, but Fleance escapes.
Read our Summary & Analysis of Act 3, Scenes 1–3. (3-minute read)
Is there a video summarizing the plot of Macbeth?
Yes, SparkNotes has a 9-minute video about Macbeth that you can access through the link below.
Watch the SparkNotes video about Macbeth. (9-minute watch)
Who are the murderers that Macbeth hires?
They might at first appear to be mere henchmen who reflect Macbeth’s evil character, but the murderers who meet with Macbeth in Act 3, Scene 1, and then kill Banquo and fail to kill Fleance in Scene 3—and who will kill Lady Macduff and Macduff’s son in Act 4—are more developed than might be expected. It is even hinted that the murderers have backstories. There is a theory among some scholars that the third and most mysterious of the murderers is, in fact, Macbeth in disguise. See the link below for more about this theory and other suggestions that the murderers are not the one-dimensional characters that their roles might suggest.
Read our in-depth Character Analysis of the Murderers. (2-minute read)
What is the most important theme in Macbeth?
A strong case could be made that the Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition is the key theme to understanding the play. What sets Macbeth apart from many other literary villains isn’t that he’s evil, it’s that he (initially at least) has a conscience. However, his conscience is ultimately displaced by his desire for power. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, appears from the start (in Act 1, Scene 5) to be all ambition and to have no conscience at all, as she urges and ridicules her husband into abandoning his. However, as we will see, once the murders she advocated for are committed, she dissolves into a quivering shell of her former bold self as her nascent conscience belatedly asserts itself.
Read more about the Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition as a Theme in Macbeth. (2-minute read)
