How Does Macbeth turn from fair to foul? In the play 'Macbeth', the words 'fair' and 'foul' appear many times. These words are used by the witches

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Mahesh Vidhyadharan

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Macbeth

How Does Macbeth turn from fair to foul?

In the play ‘Macbeth’, the words ‘fair’ and ‘foul’ appear many times. These words are used by the witches and these words symbolise good and evil. These witches will play a game which will turn Macbeth from good to evil.

In the first scene of the first act, three witches plan their next meeting in which they will encounter Macbeth. It is in this scene that the motif is first presented and it sets the scene for the rest of the play, as the three witches chant, ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair,

hover through the fog and filthy air’. The witches meet again in scene three of act one. One of the witches discusses a curse she has placed on a woman’s husband who she refused to share her food. This display of evil supernatural powers and spitefulness suggests that the witches may have some influence on the development of the motif.

Macbeth enters this scene along with Banquo, arriving from a victorious battle. He uses the motif to describe the day, ‘so foul and fair a day I have not seen’. Macbeth repeats the words which were already used by the witches earlier on in this scene, and he does this to emphasise the link the witches now have with Macbeth. It is almost as if the witches have control over Macbeth’s soul. Macbeth and Banquo simultaneously  encounter the witches and Macbeth is immediately fascinated about the witches, whereas Banquo doesn’t seem at all connected to the witches. This shows that the evil has possessed Macbeth. They give Macbeth two predictions. One is that he will become Thane of Cawdor and the other is that he will be the king of Scotland. ‘All hail Macbeth! That shalt be king hereafter’. Macbeth is shocked at these predictions.

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Shortly afterwards Ross and Angus bring news to Macbeth that he is Thane of Cawdor. Ross says,

‘And for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor…, hail most worthy Thane! For it is thine’.

With this news, Macbeth reconsiders what the witches had said, ‘Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor. The greatest is behind’.

Straight after this Macbeth immediately begins to plan his methods of obtaining these positions which if he is to be king then it involves murdering the king of Scotland. This is an example of what was once ...

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