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What happens in Act 5 of Macbeth?
In Scene 1 of Act 5, Lady Macbeth bemoans the murders of Lady Macduff and Banquo as she sleepwalks. She speaks of blood on her hands that can never be washed away. In Scene 2, a group of Scottish lords head toward Macbeth's castle as Macbeth makes military preparations. In Scene 3, Macbeth boasts that he does not fear the approaching English army because he assumes that the witches’ prophecies ensure that he will not be defeated or killed. In Scene 4, the English forces cut tree branches at Birnam Wood to camouflage their numbers as they approach the castle. In Scene 5, Macbeth learns that Lady Macbeth is dead and then learns that the "trees" of Birnam Wood are advancing toward him. He realizes that the prophecies are coming true in ways he hadn’t expected. In Scene 6, the battle commences as Malcolm orders the soldiers to draw their swords. In Scene 7, Macbeth battles those around him vigorously and disappears into the fray. In Scene 8, Macbeth fights Macduff and learns that Macduff was "from his mother's womb / Untimely ripped”... in other words, he was born by Cesarean section, and so is not technically “of woman born.” Macduff kills Macbeth and proclaims Malcolm the King of Scotland.
Read our Summary & Analysis of Act 5. (3-minute read)
Read our brief essay “Is Lady Macbeth a Villain or a Victim?” (3-minute read)
What is Lady Macbeth’s most famous quote?
In Act 5, Scene 1, Lady Macbeth utters her most famous quote and one of the most noted quotes in the play as she is spiraling into insanity over her guilt…
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
This quote resonates with key elements of the play, including guilt as a theme and blood as a symbol. Learn more about the quote and these crucial elements of the play in the links below.
Read about Lady Macbeth’s famous “Out, damned spot!” quote. (2-minute read)
Read about The Relentlessness of Guilt as a Theme (#4) in Macbeth. (1-minute read)
Why is Macbeth’s “full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing” speech famous?
The context for Macbeth’s often-quoted speech in Scene 5 of Act 5 is that he’s just learned of Lady Macbeth’s death. After initially responding to this news in a somewhat muted manner, he then launches into a powerful tirade bemoaning the collapse of his and his wife’s schemes as well as the mercurial nature of life itself. It’s also not hard to imagine that Shakespeare intended the statement, “Life’s but a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage” as a way of equating theater to the human experience.
Read more about Macbeth’s famous speech in Act 5, Scene 5. (2-minute read)
Read our in-depth Character Analysis of Macbeth. (2-minute read)
Does the witches’ prophecy that Banquo’s descendants will rule go unfulfilled?
By the play’s end, all of the witches’ prophecies have come true with seemingly one exception. In Act 1, Scene 3, they had foretold that Macbeth would become king, but also that Banquo’s descendants would one day rule Scotland. But at the end of the play, it is Duncan’s son Malcolm who is king. Did the witches get this one wrong? Scholars have suggested that perhaps not, because the sitting ruler of England and Scotland when the play was written, James I (who had previously ruled Scotland as James IV), was believed to be a descendant of the historical Banquo—something Shakespeare would have known.
