Macbeth is the story of a Scottish warrior lord (or Thane) called "Macbeth". A brave fighter and member of the nobility, Macbeth is admired by all. His weakness however, is his ambition which, when tempted, prompts him to pursue the assassination of his King, Duncan. As a result, Macbeth gains control of the monarch. The play traces how Macbeth's guilty conscious leads him to pursue further murderous acts. Slowly we see the world of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth (who goes insane) fall apart, culminating in a fight to the death between Macbeth and Macduff another Thane who seeks revenge on Macbeth for the slaughter of his family. Shrouding all of this is the element of the supernatural, represented by the three witches whose ambiguous prophecies at first tempt and then confuse Macbeth. The play is a "tragedy" and, as such, concerns the notion of divine punishment of a noble but a mortal man who through his pride (hubris), expressed as a weakness in Macbeth's case, commits an act which upsets the natural order of the world, culminating in punishment from God or the gods (tragedy comes from the ancient Greeks) of the man and thus restoring the natural order once again (this is called "catharsis").
             The play opens with an eerie scene: three witches' prophesy of doom and mayhem. The bleak setting of the opening scene established by the witches foreshadows the metaphysical events that will take place in the play. Their dialogue suggests that the future is not clear-cut, as "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" (1.1.11). This statement establishes one of the most important themes in the play, that things are not always as they seem. This battle between appearance and reality is shown throughout the course of the play. It begins when Macbeth is informed of his fate to be crowned King, he begins to ponder thoughts of committing murder "Is this dagger which I see before me, The handle...