First Five Scenes of William Shakespeare's Macbeth

First Five Scenes of William Shakespeare's Macbeth

'Fair is foul and foul is fair' are seven of the most important words

in William Shakespeare's shortest and bloodiest tragedy. 'Macbeth'

tells the story of a heroic Scottish general, Macbeth, who hears a

prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become king of

Scotland. Consumed with ambitious thoughts and spurred to action by

his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and seizes the throne for

himself. He begins his reign wracked with guilt and fear and soon

becomes a tyrannical ruler, as he is forced to commit more and more

murders to protect himself from being suspected of King Duncan's

murder.

In the first five scenes of 'Macbeth', the audience's interest is

captured, the main characters are established and many of the main

themes are introduced by the combination of diction, imagery, stage

action and incident.

'Macbeth' opens with a dramatic entrance from the witches, which alone

would appeal to the audience but also immediately sets a sinister

atmosphere for the entire play and introduces the supernatural theme

that runs significantly throughout. This first appearance of the

witches strikes the keynote for the entire play, asserting evil

instantly. When the First Witch asks,

'When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?'

it is suggested that they are able to control the weather, which was

one of the superstitions related to witches in Jacobean times. This

would have absorbed the audience at that time, as the Jacobeans would

have accepted the witches as real since the devil was a part of

reality in their lives and represented str...

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twisted ideas without a care in the world. Macbeth, is introduced as a

brave soldier, but his character appears to transform into a greedy,

yet cowardly man who is hungry for power. Also provoking the

audience's interest is the questions relating to the characters. Are

the witches here to play with people's minds or are they merely

foreseers of the future? Would humans be capable of carrying out such

evil without a persuasion? These questions are eerie and unanswered,

adding to the atmosphere which this tragedy conveys.

In conclusion, these first five scenes are merely a taster to the rest

of 'Macbeth', but already Shakespeare has achieved provoking the

audience's interest, introducing a world of perverted values,

establishing a powerful atmosphere of strangeness and evil and

introducing the main characters.