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Question:Can anybody give me a breif description of the play macbeth - Im studying it in school and i just can't get into it and my teacher keeps shouting at me and saying im not consentrating when i actually am its just not the type of thing a would read.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Can anybody give me a breif description of the play macbeth - Im studying it in school and i just can't get into it and my teacher keeps shouting at me and saying im not consentrating when i actually am its just not the type of thing a would read.

You really should read it.. it's a great play and one of his shortest... but to answer your question... I pulled this off Wiki hope it helps.

The play opens among thunder and lightning, with three Witches—the Weird Sisters—deciding that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals, Macbeth (who is the Thane of Glamis) and Banquo, have just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, led by the rebel Macdonwald. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess.

The scene changes. Macbeth and Banquo enter into conversation, remarking on the weather and their victory ("So foul and fair a day I have not seen"). While they wander into a heath, the three Witches, who have been waiting, greet them with prophecies. Even though it is Banquo who first challenges them, they address Macbeth. The first hails Macbeth as "Thane of Glamis", the second as "Thane of Cawdor", and the third proclaims that he shall "be King hereafter". Macbeth appears stunned into silence; so again Banquo challenges them. The Witches inform Banquo he shall father a line of kings. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the Witches vanish, and another Thane, Ross, a messenger from the King, soon arrives and informs Macbeth of his newly bestowed title—Thane of Cawdor. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled. Immediately, Macbeth begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king.

Macbeth writes to his wife about the Witches' prophecies. When Duncan decides to stay at the Macbeths' castle at Inverness, Lady Macbeth hatches a plan to murder him and secure the throne for her husband. Although Macbeth raises concerns about the regicide, Lady Macbeth eventually persuades him to follow her plan.

On the night of the visit Macbeth kills Duncan. The deed is not seen by the audience, but it leaves Macbeth so shaken that Lady Macbeth (herself very jumpy) has to take charge. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by planting bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. The porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's corpse. In a feigned fit of anger, Macbeth murders the servants before they can protest their innocence. Macduff is immediately suspicious of Macbeth but does not reveal his suspicions publicly. Fearing for their lives, Duncan's sons flee, Malcolm to England and his brother Donalbain to Ireland. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as a kinsman to the dead king.

Macbeth seeing the Ghost of Banquo by Théodore Chassériau.Despite his success Macbeth remains uneasy about the prophecy that Banquo would be the progenitor of kings. So Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet and discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night. He hires two men to kill Banquo and Fleance. (The third murderer mysteriously appears in the park before the murder). While the assassins murder Banquo, Fleance escapes. At the banquet Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Only Macbeth can see the ghost; the rest panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth orders them to leave.

Macbeth, disturbed, goes to the Witches once more. They conjure up three spirits with three further warnings and prophecies, which tell him to "beware Macduff", but also that "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" and he will "never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam Wood to High Dunsinane Hill shall come against him". Since Macduff is in exile in England (he meets with Malcolm and together they begin to raise an army) Macbeth assumes that he is safe; so he puts to death everyone in Macduff's castle, including Macduff's wife and their young children.

Lady Macbeth becomes racked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. In a famous scene she sleepwalks and tries to wash imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows.

Lady Macbeth sleepwalking by Johann Heinrich Füssli.In England Malcolm and Macduff plan the invasion of Scotland. Macbeth, now identified as a tyrant, sees many of his thanes defecting. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishmen Siward (the Elder), the Earl of Northumberland, against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree limbs to camouflage their numbers, thus fulfilling the Witches' second prophecy. Meanwhile Macbeth delivers the famous soliloquy ("Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow") upon his learning of Lady Macbeth's death (the cause is undisclosed, but it is assumed by some that she committed suicide, as Malcolm's final reference to her reveals "'tis thought, by self and violent hands / took off her life").

A battle ensues, culminating in the slaying of the young Siward and Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd" (i.e., born by Caesarean section)—and was therefore not "of woman born". Macbeth realizes, too late, the Witches have misled him. They fight, and Macduff beheads Macbeth off stage, and thereby fulfills the last of the prophecies.

Although Malcolm is placed on the throne and not Fleance, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo, "Thou shalt [be]get kings", was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true, for James I of England was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth

Hey Paris,
VERY briefly....
Ambitious nobleman - promised great things by old women - doesn't believe them, then almost immediatly their first prophecy comes true!!
TElls his wife.
Wife is even more ambitious than he is...
They start to plot to make the rest of the prophecies come true...
But the horror of it all sends her mad
and he gets his come uppance!

If you can get to see it at the theatre or a DVD, then it really is worth it! it's coool!