Witches Role in Macbeth

“Macbeth” and “Macbeth retold” by Mark Brozel, share many comparisons yet have many vital differences.

Whenever there is a mass murder and dozens of innocent people die the world wants to know why the murderer would do such a thing. Sometimes, the murderer is acting under the influence of someone else. This is the case in William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Macbeth, where the titular character commits multiple crimes after hearing three witches predict his future. In The Tragedy of Macbeth, the witches are the catalyst to all of Macbeth’s crimes. This can be seen when they convince Macbeth that he will become king, they motivate him to kill Banquo and they inform him that he is virtually unkillable and should fear MacDuff.

There are many differences between interpretations of William Shakespeare's MacBeth. This essay wall contrast Shakespeare's original version and a movie version by Roman Polanski produced in 1970. Three major differences will be discussed.

Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth, is a play that transcends time due to its timeless and universal themes. The themes presented in this play are just as relevant to modern audiences as they would have been to contemporary Elizabethan audiences. The play has been able to maintain its textual integrity, withstanding the fact that it is now performed out of its original context to remain a successful play for modern audiences. The issues of heroism, abuse of power and the deceptiveness of appearances are all key within the play, conveyed through the use of dramatic and literary techniques, are issues which still resonate with contemporary audiences. Shakespeare has tested the parameters of the conventional tragedy that was extremely popular during his lifetime and in doing so has created text, which is still relevant today.

With attention to the murder of King Duncan, Macbeth struggles with the morality of his actions. Before the murder takes place, Macbeth begins to believe that the murder will “be the be-all and the end-all” to his clear conscious and would risk him to eternal damnation (Act I, line 5). Yet, the murder would bring him power over Scotland and he “shalt be kind” as told by the Weird Sisters(Act 1, line 50). Macbeth goes off of his ambition to murder King Duncan. The internal struggle of choosing mortality over motives brought forth an intense shift of loyalty to betrayal. The murder caused for Macbeth to turn on Scotland and only care for his own selfish motives. The betrayal causes for the play to become horrific and have a double meaning. Macbeth must put on a face to hide his murder to become the king. The double meaning is how Macbeth looks like a hero to all of Scotland, but only the people on the inside know of his horrific actions. He had to murder to to get the position of King, but the

In killing Duncan, Macbeth goes against the great chain of being. He attacks God through killing Duncan; he undermines God’s authority on earth, which will lead to God being very angry, and eternal damnation for Macbeth. By losing the rightful King, Scotland can only become a worse place, and this is what happens – “Poor country; It cannot be call’d our mother, but out grave” (Act four, scene three, line 164). Duncan was a great King, and for a king of his power and greatness to be sacrificed to the ambition of someone like Macbeth shows the magnitude of the murder.

Shakespeare’s bloody and tragic play Macbeth, written in the seventeenth century, portrays blind ambition, appearances can be deceiving and corruption of power. It follows the reasons behind Macbeth’s downfall. The play analyzes how other outside forces can easily change the path of ones desires and decisions. The witches’ intrusion, Lady Macbeth’s manipulation and Macbeth’s dark desires all interfere and manipulate Macbeth’s decisions. He goes from being praised as a noble soldier to a traitor and corrupt king. In the play, Macbeth commits many terrible crimes; however he is solely not responsible for all of them. The outside factors manipulate his decisions and are responsible for his downfall at the end.

Shakespeare’s Act IV of Macbeth is a short act, yet he manages to introduce suspense, a vivid turning point, and key character developments. Every line of this act is significant, adding another layer to the plot in some way, for example, the doctor’s one verse introduces King Edward’s ability to heal “wretched souls” (IV.III.161) in contrast to MacBeth. The succinctness of Shakespeare’s introduction to the foil of Macbeth and Edward’s kingship, the true evil that has gained control of Macbeth’s mind, and the foreshadowing that occurs, are what make this act critically stellar.

Very few producers of art can actually let their works claim the appellation 'classic.' For to create a piece of work - literature, art, or poetry, that stands the test of time, that proves the author's premise relevant not just in the period when he created it, but also in the generations that follow, is not an easy task. The works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) have, more than once, proved worthy of the title 'classic.' Not only does his work hold up, as he wished, a mirror to his own society, but manages to reflect what is going on much later, and indeed, may be relevant well into the next millennium, if civilization continues to peruse Shakespeare's writing. A

William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth with the influence of Machiavellian principles in accordance with his characters. This statement can be supported by the characteristics he carefully coordinated within

Shakespeare foregrounds that Macbeth was aware of and resposible for his actions, through conscience and free will, to illustrate that he was not a victim of supernatural forces. By doing this he is challeging the assumptions of the Elizabethan Era that supernatural forces and "supernatural soliciting" predetermine one's destiny. The hallucinations and ghostly apparitions are foreground not to illustrate supernatural interference, but to foreground Macbeth’s guilty conscience. Macbeth struggles with his conscience, this humanises him and invites the audience to relate to him. Even before Macbeth had committed murder, his conscience was causing him to have qualms. One example of this is in Act One Scene 7, before the regicide of Duncan. “We will proceed no further in this business. (Duncan) hath honoured me of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon.” Macbeth was disinclined to murder “gracious Duncan” as he believed him to be a “good king” (4:III 163), however he still made the decision to commit regicide. This foregrounds the internal struggle Macbeth endured with his conscience that makes him a tragic hero. Supernatural elements exist to

In Elizabethan times, when Shakespeare was alive (1564-1616), the people believed in the “Divine Right of Kings”, which suggested that kings were chosen directly by God. This means that the audience would have a preconditioned view of Duncan. They would assume that he was good, gracious and holy, all traits that would definitely not apply to the witches.

In this essay I shall be looking at the way evil is portrayed in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth. I will be concentrating on the characters in the play that contribute to the evil themes of the play. It is clear from the start of the play that the witches are the main source of evil.

THESIS: In Macbeth, the author, William Shakespeare, uses Macbeth’s vaulting ambition to show how misused ambition can be a flaw.

Not only is Macbeth by far the shortest of William Shakespeare’s great tragedies, but it is also anomalous in some structural respects. Like Othello (1604) and only a very few other Shakespearean plays, Macbeth is without the complications of a subplot. (Bradley, 1905) Consequently, the action moves forward in a swift and inexorable rush. More significantly, the climax the murder of Duncan takes place very early in the play. As a result, attention is focused on the various consequences of the crime rather than on the ambiguities or moral dilemmas that had