William Shakespeare's Macbeth

William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Fair is foul, and foul is fair

The assignment we our doing, is on the play Macbeth and was written by

William Shakespeare in 1606. The play is a tragedy set in Scotland and

tells the story of a noble warrior called Macbeth who meets three

witches after a battle, and they tell him that he will become thane of

Cawdor and soon after king. As the events of the play lead on to prove

that what the witches have said is true, Macbeth soon becomes king.

Macbeth can't seem to wait for all this to happen, and wants to be

king now, so he kills the king, and slowly becomes evil, as does his

wife who assists him. The main character in this play is Macbeth, who

at the beginning of the play is a noble warrior.

At the time Macbeth was written the people would have believed in the

supernatural and the witches. The play would not have been thought

unrealistic at the time; in fact it would have been quite realistic.

Also a lot of people could accuse anyone of being a witch, and would

do all sorts of tests to see if they were. As medical science was

still very crude people would use charms and potions, to try and cure

disease's especially in the country, and this was how people would be

accused of being witches. The witches in the play are filled with

total evil, and would only appear in bad weather, just like a lot of

the bad or evil events occur in bad weather or at night. The audience

believed in the supernatural, so they would understand everything to

do with the witches and ghosts. So the all the superstition in the

play is very important in showing the evil. Also the audience would

know the withes were evil because they thought the number 3 was the

number of the devil, and the witches were associated many times with

the number 3. All this evil in the play, like the witches being able