Macbeth by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth. It was written at the time of King James, and it is relevant as you read on. King James was attracted to witches, and the play includes many matters that interest him. Macbeth as a character is very expendable, thinking and mostly unpredictable. The way Shakespeare uses Macbeth and Lady Macbeth I unique. The play is very powerful in terms of evil and lessons in life. The moral is that there are no shortcuts in life.
In the eleventh century Scotland was a violent and troubled country. Families and clans fought for any sort of territory. Macbeth was born in 1005, son of the great family that ruled Moray and Ross.
Throughout Shakespeare's life, witches and witchcraft were the article of morbid fascination. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, 16,000 people were killed burned to death (nearly all women) were convicted of being witches. There were hundreds of pamphlets describing the lurid details of witchcraft trails. These were women who were convicted.
The function of the witches is to introduce uncertainty in to the play. We are never really sure what they are able to do, how strong their influence on Macbeth is, for example.
The witches open the play with great dramatic force- this is something which would certainly shame late comers to the seat. There is thunder, there is lightening- things are not right in the world of nature, and then there are some weird, hag like creature say they come to meet Macbeth. This would make our full attention on the women, as they have named the person who the play is about. We as the audience think what are they? What can they want from Macbeth? Where have they come form?
The witches are also part of the play because of th...
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... relationship with the witches also helps the reader to see the changes in him, initially they find him, by the end he is calling to them. You could also look at how he speaks to them; he gets more and more familiar and even rude as he gets further away from the usual constraints of human society.
Finally, on a more practical level, they literally provide a change of scene and of tempo to keep the audience interested. People in Shakespeare's time would view them quite differently to a modern audience because most people believed in witches. You ask if they are to blame for what happens to Macbeth. He is the one who listens to and acts on their advice so he is partly to blame for his own downfall. Lady Macbeth really encourages Macbeth to kill Duncan and she actively helps him to cover his tracks so she is partly responsible for starting him on the path of evil too.
Since Shakespeare used beliefs of witchcraft that he had been exposed to, it is also very informational because it allows the reader to see insight on how people in the Renaissance era believed in witches. They believed that they could see into the future, create storms like when the witches stranded the sailor at sea, and make their selves invisible or disappear. It was also believed that witches could make potions and perform magic. The first lines of Macbeth are the witches having a conversation, so this automatically shows that witches and witchcraft are going to be a big focus of the tragedy. Witches and what they do are the main focus in Macbeth, and the theories of witches had a huge impact on this
The three witches in Macbeth have some control in the play. The three witches hold a great power, evil, and strong power and control over Macbeth. They have power that is connected and bonded by one another. They show Macbeth what his
The witches also kept repeating a quote that has a lot of meaning. They continued to say “foul is fair and fair is foul.” (I.i.12) This means that what seems right isn’t really right and what seems wrong isn’t really wrong. So the whole play is about false faces and how someone who seems normal and innocent isn’t really. The witches also seem to be an illusion. They are in a way human like, but at the same time they are also fake. They talked to Macbeth and told him three prophecies, which caused him to become greedy and kill King Duncan. The first time they told him what they saw was in Act 1. They said
Macbeth is a tragedy written by Shakespeare roughly between the years 1603 and 1606. It was a play written following the death of Queen Elizabeth. The king at the time - James I of England/King James VI of Scotland was known to be a big supporter of theatre, witchcraft and demonology. Shakespeare and his associates soon into their career became known as the King’s men. The Kings ancestry was traced back to Banquo, a character from the play.
At the time Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, it was the beginning of the seventeenth century. The reign of Macbeth was actually during the mid-eleventh century. He became king in 1040 after killing King Duncan who according to Fisher “was an ineffectual king” (Fisher, 43). Macbeth would then rule for the next 17 years, having appeared “to have been a good king, active and conscientious, if not always able to hold on to the whole of the territory he had gained through the murder of Duncan” (Fisher, 44). Quite the opposite in the play, Shakespeare portrays Macbeth as an evil and cruel king during the whole time of his reign. Glover points out this untruth, “Macbeth’s character has suffered unjustly at the hands of Shakespeare, as he ruled Scotland well for some seventeen years, and there is evidence that the country enjoyed some prosperity during his reign” (Glover, 39). Yet Macbeth’s reign did end in 1057 when he was killed by Malcolm, Duncan’s son, in the battle of Lumphanan. However, it wasn’t until after Macbeth’s step-son Lulach ruled for about a year, that Malcolm became king after killing him in 1058. This is where Shakespeare ends the play wit...
The weird sisters (witches) have a great impact on Macbeths state of mind when he decides to follow through with many of his actions. The witches are responsible for putting the idea of Macbeth becoming king in his head. Faith in the witches compromises his honour since they are believed to be evil however Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a fictional play written by English poet William Shakespeare. The play is set in eleventh century Scotland, during the reign of King James the first. Shakespeare evidently writes in this time period to describe the link between leaders and their supreme or ultimate power. The play was first performed in the year 1606, at the world famous Globe Theatre, and is considered one of the most profound and compelling tragedies ever told. The Tragedy of Macbeth tells the tale of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth and his ambitious desire to become king of Scotland. While he and another commander named Banquo return home from war they stumble into three hagged looking witches. The witches offer the men an enticing prophecy that leads to a more pivotal role found later in the play. Throughout the play Macbeth is seen confronting his own moral ambiguity to the heinous acts he must perform to get the position he most desires. “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, [s]hakes so my single state of man” (Shakespeare 1.3.152-53). This uncertainty, present in the scenes of Duncan’s murder, the feast, and the witch’s final predictions each unfold the ambiguity needed to understand the basis of the work as a whole.
These actions highlight the women of the play as the greatest influences on the development of the plot and Macbeth’s demise. The three witches essentially lay out the foundation of the plot of the play in the prophecy that they present to Macbeth. Before their meeting with him, they already know how the Scottish civil war is progressing and how it will conclude. Because of their witchcraft, they know that Macbeth will soon become Thane of Cawdor, and also know how they can use this event to plant a desire for greater power in him, a desire for the throne.
In the play of 'Macbeth' by William Shakespeare the witches have an important effect on Macbeth, the characters, the plot, the theme and the audience. They help construct the play and without them it would have been a totally different story line. The three weird sisters influence Macbeth in his acts, they effect characters lives, orientate the plot, they are related to most of the themes and appeal the audience's attention.
This scene sets the atmosphere for the rest of the play. If this scene was not there it would be difficult for the audience to understand how later scenes are linked or how these three women can tell Macbeth’s future. Also if elements of the supernatural were not used in Act 1 Scene 1, as they have been, the witches could not be shown as sinister and evil. These two elements of horror, “sinister” and “evil” would later be used to explain the cause of the three witches’ behaviour further on in the play.
Powerful in nature and curious to the eye, the witches in Macbeth were hooks of fascination. One never knew what would come next when it came to the witches. They possessed a dark authority and supremacy unlike any other and the temptation to ignore them was unfeasible. They brought with them gloomy days and evil thoughts. The witches could draw you in and begin to almost play with your mind if you let them. This is what ultimately led to the down fall of Macbeth. Collectively, the witches in Macbeth acted as a catalyst for all of Macbeth’s actions.
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” Once said by Marc Twain, this is an excellent example of the human nature that is represented in the play: Macbeth. Shakespeare demonstrates that all humans have the ability to do good or evil. This is strongly affected by the choices that we make and by our actions. These decisions will have a huge impact on our lives and the lives of others. Throughout the play, Macbeth experienced a huge decent into evil and violent action that lead him to his death. With his thirst for power and constant paranoia, he killed his way to seize the crown. By killing Duncan at the beginning of the play, Macbeth soon realizes that nothing can be undone and his blood stained hands can never be cleaned. “A little water clears us of this deed” (2.3 70) said by Lady Macbeth after Duncan’s murder. But what they don’t know is that this is the start of the bloody massacre that will change who they are and how they think forever. Macbeth has multiple hallucinations and his paranoia leads him to hire murderers to kill Macduff’s family out of anger and spite. Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and gets to the point of madness when she kills herself at the end of the play. This demonstrates that our actions can be affected by human nature and our thoughts can be easily corrupted by temptation.
The witches are a very important part to this play. The witches are the real trigger to Macbeths deep and hidden desires. The presence of the witches raises the battle between good an evil. The three witches are also known as the three weird sisters and are referred to that throughout the play. They help set the theme of the play and they influence not only Macbeth’s life but some other characters throughout the play.
These three witches met Macbeth and Banquo, “[w]hen the battle’s lost and won” (1.1.1-4). This is a significant detail, because it was the beginning of a pattern and an inveterate theme. When a battle of any form had finished, the witches reappeared. This is a key detail when analysing the importance of the supernatural in the play. These were times when Macbeth was curious, guilty or impatient and was in need of more answers. The witches reappeared, and provided him with the extra answers or encouragement he needed to fulfill his prophecy. However, when the witches left him with this fate, he got anxious and decided to pursue a means of fulfilling this prophecy. Macbeth’s only way to gain the throne would be the death of King Duncan and his predecessors. Due to the witches’ prophesies he was not very troubled as to how he was going to ensure these happenings. Instead, he went about formulating a plan to has...
Using their prophecies to entice Macbeth, the 3 witches drive everything that Macbeth does throughout the story. From the very first Act, the 3 sisters’ very first prophecy is what drove Macbeth and his wife to kill Duncan and he is in their control from then on, “In such a world killing a king seems almost in the nature of things; violence is in the air and the witches are its dealers. The first scene has the powerful authority inherent to first scenes: whatever happens after the opening develops out of it and is shaped by it. The witches are an integral part of whatever follows” (Cohen). The witches always come into the scene and control all of Macbeth’s decisions, whether he is aware of it or not. Stated in a paper written by Derek Cohen, “The witches can never be removed from the equation: their imprimatur is on every segment of the play. While Macbeth seems to act autonomously, he has seen the witches and they have infected him with a slow poison. They have a transformative effect on what he does and how he thinks” (Cohen). The Witches have control over Macbeth and all of his decisions from the very first scene. The witches are the reason that Macbeth became King, and then, eventually, for his downfall. In the story, the 3 sisters give Macbeth prophecies that immediately affect the decisions he makes that follow, that always have major impacts on his entire future. In Act 4, scene 1 of the play, the witches have 3 different apparitions come to Macbeth with three different prophecies. In this scene when given the prophecies, Macbeth immediately believes them but does not take them as seriously as he should. One of the prophecies the witches give Macbeth states, “.. Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.” (Document D). Later, in Act 5, scenes 5 and 8, all 3 of the prophecies that the witches provided to Macbeth come true. A messenger