Show How Shakespear Presents Dramatically the Process By Which Macbeth Comes To the Decision To Kill Duncan.

Authors Avatar

SHOW HOW SHAKESPEAR PRESENTS DRAMATICALLY THE PROCESS BY WHICH MACBETH COMES TO THE DECISION TO KILL DUNCAN.

        In the play by William Shakespear there are many ways in which he presents Macbeth to killing Duncan. To look at this I must concentrate my essay in to the main factors that influenced Macbeth and how Shakespear presents these main factors. When Macbeth is deciding whether to kill Duncan or not, he is influenced in his process to decided. One of these influences is a psychological influence of ambition, Macbeth is so amazed at the proposition of becoming king his brain becomes fixed to one aim and all other consequences and morality are thrown out of the window. He is also influenced by the dark forces of the witches, they are a major part of his decision as the have told Macbeth that he will become king. The final influence on Macbeth is his wife, in modern day society the wife is meant to look after you and love you. However in the play this love is overridden by the thought of becoming queen. So lady Macbeth would do anything to reach this position even if it begins to kill her.

        So for the rest of my essay I will try to explain in more detail about these influences and how Macbeth finally came to the decision.

 

        I will be starting with the influences of the witches on Macbeth and how Shakespear presents them dramticaly. Supernatural beings are used to create dramatic emphasis in all forms of literature. Shakespeare uses witches, ghosts, and apparitions in, Macbeth to generate this effect. Supernatural beings are effective in provoking a reaction in audiences today, so it is easy to imagine how these supernatural beings would have alarmed the people of the Elizabethan era. The population of the Elizabethan era had certain ideas about witches, which the three witches in Macbeth were based upon. The witches added an element of the supernatural as did the appearance of Banquo’s ghost and the apparitions that emerged at Macbeth’s final meeting with the three witches. All of these occurrence Macbeth s created a more dramatic atmosphere of suspense. The supernatural occurrences in were effective, especially in Elizabethan times when belief in the supernatural was more widespread than today. Shakespeare used the element of the unknown to evoke fear in the minds of his audience. By allowing the Witches to see into the future, it made Macbeth more suspenseful. With their prophecies about Macbeth’s future, they give a sense of tension as the audience to want see if they are correct. The Witches were a symbol of evil, and Shakespeare uses this fear of the devil to give his plays an additional eerie and haunting effect.

        In Act 1, Scene 3, The three Witches describe themselves as fore-tellers of destiny, and they all introduce themselves to Macbeth and Banquo as "The weird sisters, hand in hand". The expression "weird sisters", used from the 1400's, means "Fatal sisters" and the word "weird" was a noun meaning Fate. At the starting of this scene, each of the three Witches describe their wickedness with a proud manner. For example, when they asked the Second Witch where she had been, she replied, "Killing swine". This statement shows how the Witches enjoyed being devilish. The impression that the audience gets of Witches is that they are hideously evil. In Shakespeare's time, witches were believed to have supernatural powers, they could transform themselves into other shapes, usually animals. When the First Witch describes where she had been, she referred to sailing across the sea in a sieve and transforming into a rat without a tail.

Join now!

        The Witches prophecies influence Macbeth in a great way because Macbeth had secret ambitions of becoming king and these prophecies sparked his quest for becoming the King. When the Witches hail Macbeth as the "Thane of Glamis and Cawdor" and they state that he "shalt be king hereafter", Macbeth was speechless because of his secret ambitions. However the witches do express the oxymoron in the first scene ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ shows that problems are coming and they are connected with Macbeth. Although the Witches did not cause Macbeth to murder Duncan, they did provide the temptation, ...

This is a preview of the whole essay