Aoife Burns           111A

What do you think of the way Shakespeare presents the witches in the play ‘Macbeth’?

The tragedy of Macbeth is one of the most famous of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as his shortest tragedy. Actors and other theatre people often consider it to be bad luck to mention Macbeth by name while inside a theatre, and usually refer to it superstisiously as The Scottish Play or sometimes, "The Scottish King". It was written in the 17th Century and was possibly written by Shakespeare to send out a message to King James the first, who was King of England & Scotland, because he knew that he would be one of many in the audience. This message could possibly have been to be careful because he was King and in the 17th Century, people were very superstisious. They believed in ghosts, witches and othe mystical creatures.                                                                        

     By taking a chance and risking his life to get what he wants, which is to be King,  we could be getting the impression that Macbeth might be used to represent or resemble Guy Fawkes in this play, as Guy risked his life trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605.

Although the witches only appear in four scenes in the whole play, they still play a major role in the play  “Macbeth”.
    In Act 1 Scene 1, the witches are introduced with a dramatic entrance. Shakespeare uses thunder and lightning for a dramatic effect at the start of each scene the witches appear in.
    The 1
st witch says in Act 1 Scene 1, “ When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?”. This suggests that the 3 witches control the elements or maybe they can only meet in this type of weather or perhaps it is because their powers have a strong effect on the weather. This gives us the idea that the witches have supernatural powers and have a lot of authority over the weather.

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     When the 2nd witch states, “When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won” it suggests that the witches can fortell the future and that they know who is going to win the battle. The witches to have odd supernatural powers which help them to see into the future because the 3rd witch states, “That will be ‘ere the set of sun” which tells us that the battle will be over in the evening when the sun sets. The witches talk in riddles and in the 17th century, although the first watch was invented in Shakespearean times, most people wouldn’t ...

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