Macbeth Character Map

Macbeth is a short play with a small cast, and the thing that moves through it is not people but titles. Glamis, Cawdor, Prince of Cumberland, King of Scotland: each is a name that belongs to one man in one scene and to another a few scenes later, and a cast list — which fixes every character to one label — cannot show that at all. This map charts the full public-domain text: 43 figures and 105 relationships, each carrying a short quote from the play, so you can check the line rather than take our word for it.

Read the map by its names. Macbeth is listed under nine: Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland first, then what people call him once he has the crown — the tyrant, the usurper, hell-hound, “this dead butcher.” “King of Scotland” sits on three figures, Duncan, Macbeth and Malcolm, which is the play’s plot in one alias. Malcolm carries seven, from “Prince of Cumberland,” the title Macbeth calls “a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,” to the last one. Sinel, Macbeth’s father, is on the map for a single line — “By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis” — because that is how the first title arrived. The one title that moves in the play and does not move on the map is the last: Malcolm’s closing “Henceforth be earls” names no one, so it draws nothing.

Search a name to jump to it. Solid lines are kinship, dashed lines are unions and allegiances, dotted lines are social ties, and selecting a figure dims everyone they are not connected to. Select Macbeth and 43 of the 105 lines light up, to 29 of the other 42 figures; ten of his lines are hostile and only one hostile line comes back, from Malcolm. Select Duncan and four lines run to Macbeth — general, murderer, the man he rewards, the man who rewards him — the most between any two figures, tied with Macduff and Ross, who call each other cousin. Only 16 of the 105 lines are family, two of them marriages: the Macbeths and the Macduffs.

Two honest notes. The counts surprise: Ross, the thane who carries the news, is mentioned 113 times, more than Duncan (69), and Lady Macbeth is fifth, behind Banquo. And the map was made by software reading the play, so it can be wrong. Its worst slip is the first Thane of Cawdor, the traitor executed in Act I: he is not a figure here. The map folded him into the man who inherits his title, so Macbeth carries a line to Sweno, King of Norway, for the treason the other Cawdor committed, and one of the two quotes it keeps for Macbeth — “Assisted by that most disloyal traitor, The Thane of Cawdor” — is about a different man. It also never draws the duel: Macduff kills Macbeth in the last scene, and no line on the map says so. Every connection carries its quote so you can catch that kind of thing.

Who’s who in Macbeth

The short version, for the reader who just needs the thread back. Every name here is on the map, with the passage that puts them there.

Macbeth

Nine names, three of them titles, and 43 lines — more than two-fifths of the map. Ten of his lines are hostile: Macdonwald, Duncan, Duncan’s chamberlains, Banquo, Fleance, Macduff, Lady Macduff, Macduff’s children, Young Siward, and Hecate. The map’s first quote for him is the whole play in two lines: “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly.”

Lady Macbeth

120 mentions, fifth on the map, with five names and none of them her own: Queen, hostess, “Macbeth’s wife,” and Malcolm’s last word on her, “his fiend-like queen.” Ten lines, two of them to Duncan, the guest she plans for and almost kills herself. Her death reaches the map as Seyton’s line to Macbeth, bringing the news.

Macduff

Second in mentions (174) and in connections, with twelve neighbors. “Thane of Fife” is his only title and the apparition’s warning — “Beware the Thane of Fife.” Four lines join him to Ross, his cousin, and three to Macbeth, none of them the duel that ends the play.

Malcolm

Seven names that tell the plot in order: “King’s son,” “Prince of Cumberland,” “young Malcolm,” “King of Scotland.” Fourteen lines: his father, his brother, his uncle Siward, King Edward who shelters him, and one hostile line to Macbeth, the only one on the map that points at the tyrant rather than from him.

Banquo

127 mentions and no alias at all — the one principal the play never calls anything else. Three lines join him to Macbeth: friend, enemy, and the rival line the map draws for the banquet, where his ghost sits in the king’s place. The ghost is not a separate figure. The Third Witch’s line to him is the prophecy: “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.”

Duncan

Sixty-nine mentions — fewer than Ross — and sixteen lines, because everyone in Act I reports to him: the bleeding Captain, Ross with the victory, Macbeth and Banquo with the war. Four lines run to Macbeth alone. The map keeps “King of Scotland” among his names and then hands the same name to two other men.

Ross

The messenger thane: 113 mentions, more than the king he serves. “The worthy Thane of Ross” carries Cawdor’s title to Macbeth, the omens to the Old Man, the warning to Lady Macduff, the massacre to Macduff and the death of Young Siward to his father. Cousin to both Macduffs; the map keeps “coz” among his names.

The Weird Sisters

Three figures, not one — First, Second and Third Witch, each with “Weird Sister” among her names — plus Hecate, who rebukes them for dealing with Macbeth without her. The First Witch, with 52 mentions, is the most-mentioned figure outside the court. The map ties Macbeth to all three and to Hecate twice.

Lady Macduff

Forty-four mentions and seven lines: her husband, her son, her cousin Ross twice, the messenger who warns her, the murderer who pursues her, and Macbeth, who orders it. The map holds her children twice — “Macduff’s Son,” the boy with the witty exchange about his father, and “Macduff’s children,” the brood Macduff mourns as “all my pretty chickens and their dam.”

Siward

Earl of Northumberland and Malcolm’s uncle — “His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff” — with five lines: the nephew he brings an army to, the son he loses, Macduff who sought him, and Ross who reports the death. Young Siward has two lines, his father and the man who kills him.

Fleance

Banquo’s son, 24 mentions, three lines: his father, Macbeth who orders him dead, and the First Murderer whose attack he escapes. He is the reason for the Banquo murder and the one target on the map that survives it.

Lennox

Sixty-two mentions and only three neighbors: Macbeth, Macduff and the unnamed Lord of Act III, with whom he trades the play’s most careful suspicions. The map files that Lord as a figure of his own, with lines to Lennox, Malcolm and King Edward.

Questions people ask about Macbeth