This essay aims to undertake a succinct look at the role of the Witches in the play Macbeth relative to stage performance and plot.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Macbeth Coursework

Macbeth is described as a play fit for kings. Its creation in the early 1600s by Shakespeare resulted in a theatrical extravaganza that still lives in the eyes of its loyal followers. This essay aims to undertake a succinct look at the role of the Witches in the play Macbeth relative to stage performance and plot.

Shakespeare lived during the Jacobean and Elizabethan period. During this time the people saw witches as a potential threat to their lives. Witches were blamed for many misfortunes and disasters. Countless women who were suspected of taking part in witchlike activities were murdered by being burnt at the stake. King James, for whom the play Macbeth was written, claimed that some witches had raised a storm to try and drown him and then had built a wax figure of him to make him sick and die. This made the role of the witches in Macbeth very important. Portraying the witches as evil and as a danger to kings, Shakespeare pleased King James since he believed that witches were trying to harm him.

The witches first appear in scene one, right at the beginning of the play. Opening characters