In act 5 when Malcolm comes to attack the Scottish castle, they use branches from Birnam wood, as a camouflage to disguise the numbers of the English army and that goes with the witches’ apparitions. The witches knew this would happen but they only told Macbeth only a part of it, but when he thought about it, he thought they would never happen. With this camouflage Macbeth will probably be scared. It would have been staged by Macbeth and six or seven soldiers with branches in front of him.
Supernatural means something that you can’t prove, things to do with spirits. The supernatural characters are evil. They are the witches and ghosts. The witches connect Macbeth to the force of evil. Where the place? Upon the heath. There to meet with Macbeth.
The witches are old women that have supernatural powers, they speak in opposites and they rhyme when they talk compared to the other characters they will be welcome and unwelcome. They cast spells on Macbeth and Banquo to stop them sleeping. Like with lady Macbeth to sleepwalking and Macbeth seeing things for example seeing the knife above his head when he is about to assassinate King Duncan. The witches connect to Macbeth through his mind as his so called ‘conscience’ but in the play anyone who works with the witches, has no conscience. Macbeth believes in them but Banquo thinks they are imperfect speakers. Banquo also says that he cannot sleep because he has nightmares. I would not sleep; merciful powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts. When they get the three predictions Macbeth gets very good ones and Banquo’s were ok but confusing because they speak in opposites, lesser than Macbeth yet much greater. Not so happy yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings though thou shall be none.
The ghosts appear after Macbeth sends out his murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance. The murderers kill Banquo with twenty gashes on his head but Fleance escapes. In the banqueting scene, Banquo is a ghost pictured with twenty gashes on his head, but he probably only had about five or six gashes and only Macbeth could see him. Were the graced person of our Banquo present, who may I rather challenge for unkindness. Than pity for mischance. But it was all his imagination, Shakespeare would have shown it by having someone backstage, saying the lines of Banquo and the audience would think they were hearing Banquo the ghost too.
They appear because Macbeth’s imagination was taking over his mind, and all it seemed that all he would think about was the witches and him being king. Because once he killed Duncan he wanted to carry on killing. And he killed Banquo and tried to kill Fleance because the witches said, Banquo would have got kings but not been one himself. I think that Macbeth has a lot of interaction with the witches, as he believes that they are good, he wants to know what they talk about and that they know the future, with the predictions and the apparitions. But most of the other characters think its something ill or sick going on with the witches and that they are bad things. So they don’t want to try and connect with them because bad things may happen.
Lady Macbeth doesn’t see any of the witches or ghosts but she tries to link up with the supernatural spirits, through the light and dark, so she can be powerful with Macbeth, to be the King and Queen of Scotland. She links up to them by sleep-walking in the dark and she kept seeing the blood on her hands from King Duncan’s death. She couldn’t get the blood off and she walked with a candle, rich people did this because candles were very expensive then, just in case she woke up. What need we fear? Who knows it, when none can call all our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him? Will these hands ne’er be clean?
I think Shakespeare puts the supernatural in the play to make it more realistic, in the times he was writing plays and to make them more exciting to watch and listen to. It would be very boring without the supernatural – the witches and ghosts because the play sounds better with weird things happening because the audience tries to figure out what has happened or what is about to happen and what they are trying to say. At the globe the supernatural was probably staged as something freaky happening. But the words would have described the things happening with little actions and the audience having their imaginations take over making them think about what is happening. The play without the supernatural would be something like: a soldier who likes power and has a sidekick, does very well in a battle, gets a higher ranking and lives the rest of his life this way. The witches make him think about being king so he wouldn’t have had the thought and he wouldn’t have killed King Duncan and had all those hallucinations, Banquo wouldn’t have been killed because in the three predictions they might not have said Banquo would have kings and they would have carried on being friends. It would have been a play that anyone could make up and would be quite bad. So having the supernatural improves the play and makes it very good.
