Hello friends, welcome to educationalguruji.com. Today we are going to cover a detailed summary of Shakespeare's one of the most famous tragedies, Macbeth. Now friends, before we dive deep into the story, let me tell you a very shocking secret about Macbeth. In the theatre world, people believe that Macbeth is a cursed play and therefore they do not take its name loudly, instead it is called “The Scottish Play”. Superstitious, right? Now, Shakespeare drew inspiration for the characters of Macbeth, Macduff and Duncan from Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577), a very famous book on the history of England. While working on Russian translations of Shakespeare's works, Boris Pasternak compared Macbeth to Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Now friends another notable writer, Thomas De Quincey, wrote an essay regarding criticism of Macbeth. It is called “Knocking on the Gates of Macbeth”. Now friends, before starting the play, let's understand the characters. First we have Macbeth, the hero of the story. He's a Scottish general in King Duncan's army. He's also the Thane of Glamis. Glamis is the name of a place. Thane means noble man who owns a piece of land. So basically, in exchange for his service to the king, the king has made him in charge or ruler of a piece of land in Glamis. The next character is Lady Macbeth. She's the wife of Macbeth and provokes him to kill King Duncan in the beginning of the story. Towards the end of the play, she becomes insane. The third important character is Banquo. He is also a Scottish Nobel man. Macbeth also gets him killed for the greed of power. The next character is Macduff. He's also a Scottish nobleman. Friends Macduff kills Mackbeth towards the end of the story. Why? Because Macbeth got his entire family killed for the greed of power. The next character is King Duncan. He is killed by Macbeth. King Duncan has two sons, the eldest one is called Malcolm. King Duncan wanted Malcolm to become king after him, but after his death, Malcolm runs away. However, he returns at the end of the story and becomes the king with the help of Macduff.