Macduff's Son

Macduff's son is a character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (1606). His name and age are not established in the text, and, typical of Shakespeare's child characters, the boy is cute and clever. While Lady Macduff and her children are mentioned in Holinshed's Chronicle as the innocent victims of Macbeth's cruelty, Shakespeare is completely responsible for developing Macduff's son as a character. The boy appears in only one scene (4.2), in which he briefly banters with his mother and is then murdered by Macbeth's thugs. The scene's purpose is twofold: it provides Shakespeare's audience with a thrillingly horrific moment, and it underscores the depravity into which Macbeth has fallen. The brutal scene has often been cut in modern performance. Macduff's son is viewed as a symbol of the youthful innocence Macbeth hates and fears, and the scene has been compared by one critic to the biblical Slaughter of the Innocents.