In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, light and dark play a big role in the dualities of the characters, the setting and the imagery throughout the play. Macbeth begins with three witches talking about when to meet again. These witches are evil by nature and represent evil throughout the book. The head of these witches states in her first line, “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lighting or in rain?” (I. i.
It also immediately draws the audience and captures their imagination, as the supernatural world fascinated people in Elizabethan England. The use of the paranormal also occurs at the beginning of this short, yet impactful scene, when the three witches explain that they will meet with the main character of the play, Macbeth, before sunset, “When the battle’s lost and won” (l. 4), “There to meet with Macbeth” (l. 8). This is the
William Shakespeare's eponymously titled play Macbeth is one of the most celebrated writings in history and is still being performed and studied today. The play reflects the established socio-cultural beliefs of power and the effects of an illegitimate rule during the Jacobean period. Written in the seventeenth century when belief in a divine-ordained hierarchy prevailed, it was thought that if monarchical power was accessed via illegitimate means, destruction of the mind and state would result. Through the character of Macbeth, Shakespeare positions his readers to believe that power can attract even the most noble of men. In the opening of the play, a loyal Macbeth is approached by three witches who entice him with their claim that “[he] shalt be king thereafter.” (1-3-50).
Some theories suggest that Macbeth was influenced by the supernatural but some believe that Macbeth himself was responsible for his actions and inevitable downfall. Macbeth ignores the voice of his own psyche and let himself carried away by the predictions of the witches. He is aware that he is going to commit a murder, but nevertheless he lets himself mislead by the three weird sisters and his own wife Lady Macbeth. The ghost and the apparitions also influenced Macbeth a lot. We say
Even since before modern horror and scary movies, the charcters of horror filled our hearts with fear, our heads with imagination, and our bodies with adrenaline. They are scary, vile, and yet we can’t keep away from them. Supernatural characters is something that used to intrique people since the beginning of horror. They are something unexplainable, non-existing, yet interesting enough to keep our attention and raise our fear. Witches, vampires, werewolves, spirits- all human with a special power.
The Story of Humanity: The War between the Supernatural and Natural In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the prevalent theme of the supernatural versus the natural underpins the idea that calamity will happen if mankind defy the natural world—in Macbeth’s case, murder. From the beginning of the play, the witches introduce both the readers and Macbeth to the world of the supernatural. Their existence alone defies the popular concept derived from Plato and Aristotle, the Great Chain of Being. It is through this introduction that something changed in Macbeth, kindling the traitorous flame that would ruin him. In defiance of the Great Chain of Being, the inclusion of several uses of the supernatural in the Scottish place, which includes Macbeth’s first meeting with the witches, the three apparitions, and the air-drawn dagger, serve to illustrate the danger resulting from the humanly desire to go against the natural order.
In the beginning Macbeth was a good hero however he became overly ambition as a result of the three witches’ prophecy. He doesn’t switch between good and evil like Dr Jekyll however he becomes more evil as the play progressed. Macbeth had a plan to achieve and he would destroy anything and anyone that gets in his way, even his best friend Banquo. On the other hand Jekyll
(1.3.71)” Banquo also doubts the intension of the witches, he believes that evil always tells one part of the truth in order to earn one’s trust and lead him to destruction. Banquo warns Macbeth, ”But ‘tis strange./And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/ the instruments of darkness tell us truths,/win us with honest trifles, to betray’s/In deepest consequence. (1.3.124-128)” On the other hand, Macbeth ignored his friends warning and believes in what the witches say. He is over whelmed by his ambition to be king, he said to himself,”Glamis, and the thane of Cawfor!/The greatest is behind. (1.3.118-119).””Two truths are told/,as happy prologues to the swelling act/of the imperial theme.
These prophecies were directed to Macbeth in fooling him that he would be crowned king. At first they call him “thane of Cawdor” and tell him he will be king. They tell Banquo that his descendents will be king but it will not be him himself “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none”. These prophecies seem reasonable at the time at which they were spoken by the witches but as the playwright moves along and we now know that the witches only speak in half truths we see them falling apart and becoming a true lie and a true fix. This generates masses of sympathy for the character Macbeth as we feel
I was interested in studying this because it caught my attention the way Lady Macbeth and her husband were punished for committing treason from Shakespeare point of view, but from a modern point of view we can read the scene differently. The first paragraph is general background of what happened, introducing the scene. The second one is about the Elizabethan Society and their way of thinking through anomalies and rare things like the one Macbeth and his wife suffered. Elizabethan society´s superstitious belief in the unifying theory of the Chain of Being is explained: What is natural and unnatural, health and sickness as signs of unnaturalness. The third contrasts the Elizabethan Society with the modern one, which gives more scientifically and psychological reasons for the mental illness of Lady Macbeth.