“1. Witch. All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Gladis!”
“2. Witch. All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawldor!”
“3. Witch. All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, thalt shall be king here after!”
This, along with his fives thoughts sets the good, noble Macbeth into an evil frame of mind when he realises what it is going to take for the witches to be correct and for him king. Alone with the help of lady Macbeth he decides that he doesn’t care whom he kills on his way up. He won’t stop until he is King of Scotland.
After killing King Duncan and Banquo Macbeth soon finds himself in charge of Scotland he holds a banquet in Act three, Scene five. Where the ghost of Banquo appears as an illusion in Macbeth’s mind. Everyone at the banquet, including lady Macbeth is confused and puzzled about Macbeth’s weird public behaviour. Macbeth was cracking up starting to give the game away about the murders of the King and Banquo so lady Macbeth decides to usher everyone out before Macbeth gives too much away. From this point lady Macbeth starts to feel isolated and by the time we get to, Act five, scene one she is imagining the blood of Duncan all over her hands and is seen to b trying to wash her hands while sleepwalking. The influence of all the supernatural gets to her a lot more than Macbeth and she drives her self so insane that she commits suicide by jumping out of her bedroom window to an immediate death.
Shakespeare uses a lot of imagery such as ‘raven’, ‘serpent’, ‘beetle’ and ‘scorpions’ to push his story into another level of abnormality.
“The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan.”
This is when lady Macbeth has persuaded Macbeth to kill the King and they are waiting for his arrival. The imagery is also used again in act one, scene five to illustrate the sleeping King Duncan:
“Look like the innocent flower,
But the serpent under’t.”
Shakespeare also uses imagery of light and darkness especially when describing the latter by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth:
Lady Macbeth:
“Come thick night
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark.”
In conclusion Shakespeare uses a lot of dramatic effect, supernatural happenings and even irony to very good use in ‘Macbeth’ it gives the story a good twist and keeps the audience glued so they can find out what is going to happen next in the story. At the time ‘Macbeth’ was written anyone whom was suspected of being a witch of performing any kind of witchcraft was banished and killed by being burnt or hung. Also anyone who was a traitor to King or country would have been hung. So when Shakespeare wrote the tale of Macbeth he was being very politically incorrect which may be why the story of ‘Macbeth’ is so popular. So I believe that Shakespeare used the supernatural happening to dramatic effects very well to portray a very good supernatural story.
