While the witches are giving the prophecies, Macbeth has a subconscious intent, even if he does not know it yet but Banquo does not believe them so easily. I think that is one of the reasons the witches chose Macbeth and not Banquo, he does not have that ambition inside him or the will to get what he was promised, which Macbeth does. The language he uses shows this. ‘I’th’name of truth are ye fantastical, or that indeed which outwardly ye show.’ Macbeth believes that they are real straight away and it does not cross his mind that they may be trying to trick him, but Banquo asks them as he is more hesitant to believe them.
‘Stay you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.’ When he says this, it shows that Macbeth is very curious and intrigued by what the witches have said and that he is getting angry when they have left him wanting more. You can already see the feeling of power that he has bubbling inside of him this early in the play.
I think the battle at the beginning of the play was used to show how brutal Macbeth could really be, even before he knew how he was going to use it. After the battle, when Macbeth goes to Duncan’s castle and is presented with the title, Thane of Cawdor, he swears an oath of loyalty to Duncan, which he knows he may have to break to get what he wants. I think this shows that the witches have already started to corrupt him.
Macbeth writes to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her about the prophecies, his new title and that Duncan is coming to stay with them. He talks about ambition, and that they should not be ignorant. He says that he has; ‘Burned in desire to question them further.’ By using that sort of language, Shakespeare shows how passionate Macbeth is supposed to feel. Lady Macbeth is determined to push him to take his fate into his own hands and make himself king, no matter what he has to do.
Lady Macbeth deals with the prophecies in a very different way to Macbeth. Instead of just thinking about what they could do, which is what Macbeth is doing, she actually does something. She goes over to the ‘dark side’. She does a spell in which she asks the devil to ‘unsex me here.’ Meaning, she wants to be turned into a man, be given male courage.
At first, Macbeth is reluctant to kill Duncan, but when he comes to stay, an opportunity arises that is too perfect to push away. When Lady Macbeth sees the opportunity, she starts to try to convince her husband to kill Duncan. He finally agrees after she starts to question his manhood. He starts to hallucinate while he is walking down the corridor on his way to murder Duncan, seeing a bloody dagger floating before him. ‘Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.’ You can see the madness in him that later in the play, wraps up his wife, Lady Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth swap roles more than once in the first two acts. They first swap roles when Lady Macbeth is trying to bully the newly appointed Thane of Cawdor into murdering Duncan. She is the dominant person in the relationship. But when Macbeth has killed Duncan she talks about how she would have committed the murder if Duncan had not resembled her father as he slept. ‘Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done’t’
Dramatic irony is used frequently throughout the play. It is used at the beginning when the witches give Macbeth his predictions; he asks them why they name him Thane of Cawdor when the Thane of Cawdor lives. We know that he has been named that and that there is a messenger on the way to tell him that, but he does not know that.
It is used when Macduff has just discovered that Duncan has been killed, in his speech he says that Lady Macbeth is too gentle and lady like to hear what happened.
Shakespeare uses dramatic effects and language in the first two acts to change how we, the audience, feel about and see the characters. Dramatic effects also change the themes in the play. If the witches first scene had not been set on a cold, windy heath, and had been set in a warm cosy cottage it would have changed the theme of their actions and how we see the witches throughout the play.
