Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1 Essay

One of the most important themes in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare comes from one of the last lines in Act 1, Scene 1 of the play. The three witches speak this line

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair" (1:1:12), shortly before they disperse and it becomes a prophecy and an secret warning throughout the rest of the play. This one line becomes more and more important as the play unfolds beginning even with Macbeth’s opinions at the beginning of the story and lasting throughout the play with the constant themes of deception and doing evil in the name of good. We see that even from the beginning the unfolding events and themes can all be predicted through these first few lines in Act 1 Scene 1, events and themes that surround Macbeth’s eventual demise.

This line ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair,’ is important to the play Macbeth. When the witches spoke there line for the first time it looked like they were speaking plainly, that the line meant, what is fair or good, for the witches is foul or evil like death or betrayal and what is evil and foul for the witches is fair and good like happiness and butterfly’s. However when comparing the quote to the rest of the themes of the play, we interpret a deeper meaning in the line. We know that the quote is an important theme that shows the plot of the play in a few simple words. We see that a similar line in the beginning also refers to the victory of the war that

Macbeth achieves which is highlighted in the line, ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’ We interpret this as the day being fair in victory but foul in the lives that were lost and how the horrible weather that the army experience afterwards.

'Fair is foul and foul is fair', also presents itself in the ...

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... after murdering king Duncan. It is strange or "foul" that he should think of religion after committing such an unholy act. Macbeth gets very paranoid after this crime and it grows as he progresses in his foul ways.

The witches affect Macbeth’s life by first meeting him and telling him his future. They turn his life upside down. Macbeth is not the person he seems. He is introduced as a warrior hero, whose fame in the battlefield wins him the honor from King Duncan, but in the end that same warrior hero killed the king and died the worst of deaths. The meaning behind 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair' to me in a simple version is that things that appear good, could be bad and that the things that appear ugly and bad, could actually turn out to be good. Macbeth seemed like a noble warrior but he really was a cold blooded killer and a power hungry person.