Malcolm tells him that he, Malcolm, has ambitions to be a dictator, a tyrant, and that, as king, he will be bloodthirsty, vengeful, and oppressive. Macduff has come to England to join Malcolm in his military mission of returning to Scotland to overthrow Macbeth. The only scene in Macbeth that is not fast-moving and engaging is the long conversation Malcolm has with Macduff. Order has been subverted and we see this in the way nature is responding: there are huge storms, horses are biting their grooms and fleeing from their stables the birds that are normally the prey of owls are turning on their predators. ![]() The longer Macbeth holds power the more chaotic things become, with his opponents, or suspected opponents, being routinely murdered. Macbeth has disrupted all that and everything is upside down, with good acts being punished and wrongdoing rewarded. Malcolm is like his father, whose job it was to punish wrongdoing, reward good acts and keep things going on an even keel. His function in the text is to represent order – fixed, unyielding order – in contrast to the chaotic nightmare that Scotland has become under Macbeth. Nicholas Woodeson as Malcolm in the RSC‘s 1986 Macbeth production ![]() He is not developed as a dramatic character in the drama and, unlike most of the characters in Macbeth, we know nothing about him as a person except that he talks a lot. In spite of the importance of Malcolm’s role in bringing Macbeth down he is not in any way interesting. He does raise the army and, with the help of some of the most powerful thanes, and the English forces, he returns to Scotland and his troops defeat Macbeth’s army. Malcolm goes to England, where he lobbies the English king to help him raise an army to return to Scotland to overthrow Macbeth. ![]() When Duncan’s body is discovered his sons, fearing that suspicion will fall on them, flee, leaving Macbeth to claim the throne. Malcolm and his younger brother, Donalbain, are accompanying their father on his visit to Macbeth and are right in the middle of it when the assassination happens. Although the Scotland of the play has an elected monarch Duncan has named Malcolm as his successor.ĭuncan’s pronouncement of his son as the future king is a contributing argument in Macbeth’s decision to kill him as soon as possible. ![]() He is the elder son of the King, Duncan, who is murdered by Macbeth early in the play. Malcolm is a character in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order.
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