Macbeth & Kingship – Grade 9 Essay for IGCSE English Literature
Sarah O'Rourke - Nov 29, 2025
Grade 9 student essay on Macbeth and Kingship – by Hailey
This is a Grade 9 essay written for IGCSE English Literature Edexcel 4ET1 by a real student, Hailey. She has kindly given me permission to share her work online.
You can read the essay below or watch my breakdown video on YouTube.
Video lesson: Macbeth, Kingship and Writing Grade 9 Essays
Explore the theme of Kingship in Macbeth.
Essay written by Hailey.
Macbeth, a Jacobean tragedy written by William Shakespeare, presents kingship as a necessary component that influences a country’s power. As the play progresses under the ruling of three kings – Duncan, Macbeth, and Malcolm – Shakespeare suggests that peace and power are only maintained under the right leader, and chaos will take over once a wrong leader takes the place. This is best evident by King Duncan’s generous yet somewhat flawed nature, Macbeth’s tyrannical ruling, and Malcolm’s ultimate restoration.
To begin with, King Duncan is portrayed as the rightful leader who keeps Scotland under control, yet he has his hamartia of trusting people too much. He is depicted as just and benevolent when he announces that “signs of nobleness like stars shall shine on all deservers” in the court when Malcolm is told to ascend the throne next. The simile “like stars shall shine” connotes divine power, implying that they will be rewarded for virtue and nobility. This would have demonstrated Duncan’s kingship clearly to the contemporary audience, as the majority of the belief was that kings were chosen from Divine Right by God. By obeying this, they would be obeying the Great Chain of Being, ultimately heeding to God’s decision since God is positioned at the top of the hierarchy, presenting Duncan as a king who not only nurtures “[deserving]” people through generosity, but also is loyal to God himself. However, his nature of building an “absolute trust” reveals that his tendency to rely excessively on his thanes to rule Scotland led him to his downfall as he was betrayed by two different thanes of Cawdor twice. This cyclicality perhaps highlights the inevitable downfall of Duncan despite being a strong, righteous king. With King James I having been almost murdered by the Gunpowder plot not long after he ascended the throne, Shakespeare could have also framed the plot as a Cautionary Tale for King James to be nurturing and benevolent, yet wary of the divide between appearances and reality to maintain the throne and country in peace.
Macbeth, on the other hand, is established as a foil character of Duncan and acts as a cautionary figure who reveals that when the wrong leader is in power, a country will “bleed”. Initially, he is titled “brave”, an epithet portraying him as a valiant and admiring warrior. However, because he is not selected by God through Divine Rights, he is ultimately blinded by his “vaulting ambition” and transforms into a “dead butcher” and a “tyrant”. This transformation is engendered by his committing regicide and homicide of Duncan and Banquo, respectively, as he violently rids anyone who he needs to “o’erleap” solely to remain as king. The corrupted kingship is revealed through the metaphor “dead butcher”, which reduces Macbeth to a mindless killer, juxtaposing “brave Macbeth” at the beginning of the scene when he “unseam’d the nave to the chaps” of the Norwegian adversary out of patriotism rather than his hamartia, “vaulting ambition” which he did for his murder of Duncan and Banquo. Through Macbeth’s tragic fall, Shakespeare, therefore, implies that a country will fall into anarchy with a leader only obsessed with maintaining power. Contextually, Macbeth would have already been disqualified as a king immediately after he started to plan to murder Banquo. This is because male friendships were extremely valued in a patriarchal society in which males spent most of their time together, and betraying them by murder would have been considered the most vile quality a king could possess in the Jacobean era. Thus, Shakespeare aims to warn of the dangers of unchecked ambition that a king can bring: the murder of a friend, the king, and chaos.
Ultimately, though, order is restored by Malcolm, who is depicted as the perfect king among the three. One piece of evidence is that Malcolm, unlike his father Duncan, does not trust others too much. When he meets Macduff in England, he is first dubious whether he is a spy sent by Macbeth or not, thus testing him by lying about his “vices” being “grafted” and “black Macbeth” being “pure as snow” compared to him. Malcolm’s cautionary nature and intelligence are evident as he successfully presents as if evil is part of his nature by hyperbolizing the fictional sin that is embedded in him. The juxtaposition of light and dark imagery intensifies this effect as Macbeth being “pure as snow” sarcastically contrasts his well-known “black and deep desires”. Thus, Shakespeare hints how Malcolm is capable of distinguishing one’s divide in appearance and reality, a fatal flaw that his father could not avoid. Another evidence is that Malcolm, unlike Macbeth, is an epitome of a patriotic and dedicated king who prioritizes the future of Scotland rather than his ambitions. Under the control of Macbeth, Malcolm worries that the country is “[sinking] beneath the yoke” and that it “bleeds” and “weeps”. His personification of Scotland indicates his treatment of a country comparable to a loved one, reflecting his true love and concerns for the survival of Scotland. With Malcolm ascending the throne, therefore, Shakespeare gives the audience a sense of catharsis in which the king free of hamartia – both trust and “vaulting ambition – restores order. Considering that the play was written to satisfy King James, Shakespeare would have intentionally structured the play to deliver the message that, regardless of human attempts to disrupt the natural order, it would ultimately be restored through Divine Rights.
Overall, Shakespeare displays how only correct kingship allows a country to be at peace and under control. By exposing each king’s hamartia and ultimate restoration, Shakespeare depicts kingship as the determining factor of a country’s survival and warns that a wrongful king will create chaos.
Teacher annotated grade 9 essay for kingship in Macbeth
See my marking below. If you’d like to join one of my group classes, I can mark your work too!
What are the elements of a Grade 9 Literature essay?
1. Start with a Clear Thesis Statement
Your essay should open with a concise thesis that answers the question and states your main argument about kingship.
For example, you might argue that having the rightful and true king allows a country to flourish, while having a tyrant as a king will led to a breakdown of the natural order. A clear thesis provides focus and guides your entire essay.
2. Organise Your Paragraphs by Big Ideas
Structure your essay around key ideas or themes. For Macbeth, you might consider:
- Duncan as a kind, meek king, but too trusting
- Macbeth as a cruel tyrant, unfit to be king
- Malcolm as the rightful king, the best among the three
Each paragraph should focus on one of these ideas, with topic sentences that clearly introduce the point.
3. Develop Your Arguments with Analysis of Language, Form and Structure
For each point, include detailed analysis of language, form, and structure.
Language features
- Nature and weather imagery
Storms, darkness, unnatural animals, eclipses and “strange” weather when the wrong king rules vs images of light, calm, harvest, birds, spring when order is restored. - Animal imagery
Predatory animals for tyrants (serpents, ravens, “worms”, “hell hounds”) vs noble animals for rightful rulers (lions, eagles). - Plant and garden imagery
Metaphors of pruning, planting, “grafting”, roots and branches to present the king as gardener of the state, or a tyrant as someone who lets it “wither” or “rot”. - Body and disease imagery
The state pictured as a sick body under a tyrant (infection, “ulcer”, “plague”) vs cured health under the rightful king. - Light and darkness
Light for legitimate rule, hope and transparency vs darkness for secrecy, tyranny and moral corruption. - Blood, hands and guilt motifs
Repeated references to blood, stains, washing, and hands that “will not be clean”, linking unlawful kingship to permanent moral contamination. - Clothing imagery
“Borrowed robes”, “giant’s robes upon a dwarfish thief”, ragged or ill fitting clothes to suggest illegitimate or uncomfortable kingship. - Antithesis and balance
Balanced pairs such as “fair” vs “foul”, order vs chaos, heaven vs hell that sharpen the contrast between good king and tyrant. - Semantic fields of time and lineage
References to “posterity”, “seed”, “issue”, “line” to show a true king as part of a long, stable dynasty, versus the tyrant as a “cut off” branch.
Form
- Iambic pentameter
Regular metre when the natural order is intact, contrasted with broken, irregular lines when usurpation or moral chaos take over, especially in Macbeth’s “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” soliloquy. - Soliloquies
Inner debates about power, legitimacy, conscience and “right” to the crown, revealing how kingship is experienced internally.
Structure
- Cyclical structure
The play or text beginning with relative order, moving into chaos under the tyrant, and ending with restoration of a rightful ruler. - Patterning of coronations and ceremonies
Placement of coronations, anointings, or public celebrations that show how legitimate kingship should be formally recognised. - Rising disorder in the middle acts
A clear escalation from private plotting to public breakdown of order, reflecting the spreading impact of illegitimate rule. - Foreshadowing and callbacks
Early hints about “unnatural” acts or “foul play” that are later fulfilled, reinforcing the idea that the universe itself reacts to bad kingship.
Remember, don’t just quote and list techniques: analyse how the authorial choices reveal a deeper message about character or theme.
4. Pick Short, Impactful Quotations
Use brief quotes, ideally 1 to 3 words, embedded smoothly into your sentences so your writing keeps its flow. Choose quotations that clearly link to kingship, legitimacy and tyranny. For example:
- Duncan is presented as an ideal, almost holy ruler, a “gracious” king whose “virtues” will “plead like angels”.
- Macbeth first appears as “brave Macbeth”, but once he steals the crown he becomes a “tyrant” and “butcher”, showing how illegitimate kingship warps his identity.
- Under Macbeth, Scotland “weeps, it bleeds”, while Malcolm later promises “king-becoming graces”, suggesting he will heal the damaged kingdom.
Short, targeted quotations like “gracious”, “tyrant” or “king-becoming” make it easy to zoom in on Shakespeare’s view of good and bad kingship, and they keep your analysis sharp and fluent.
5. Show Personal Opinion and Critical Insight
To reach the top grades, you need to show your own thinking about Shakespeare’s message on kingship, not just retell the plot. You could consider questions such as:
- Is Macbeth ever a truly legitimate king, or is he always a usurper in Shakespeare’s eyes?
- How does Shakespeare invite the audience to compare Duncan’s gentle authority with Macbeth’s violent rule?
- Does Malcolm seem like an ideal future king, or a more calculating politician shaped by chaos?
Give a clear opinion, then support it with evidence and methods from the text. For instance, you might argue that Shakespeare uses religious imagery and the language of disease to show that a false king poisons both the “body” of Scotland and the natural order itself.
6. Conclude by Answering the Kingship Question
Finish with a conclusion that brings your main ideas together and directly answers the exam question on kingship.
Do not simply list the techniques you have explored or repeat your topic sentences. Instead, step back and think about why Shakespeare cares so much about rightful rule. You could:
- Consider his intentions for a Jacobean audience, who believed in the divine right of kings and would see Macbeth’s usurpation as a dangerous sin.
- Think about how a modern audience might respond to the idea that a corrupt leader damages a whole society and even the natural world.
Ask yourself: What is Shakespeare warning us about when he shows Scotland collapsing under a “tyrant” and recovering under a rightful king? Why does it matter that the crown returns to its proper line?
End by answering the “so what?” of kingship in Macbeth. Show what Shakespeare is expressing about power, responsibility and the need for a true, just king if a country is to flourish.
