Shakespeare uses verisimilitude through Macbeth’s hallucinations and the supernatural manisfestations, thus helping an Elizabethan audience to make the extremely evil and unpleasant acts seem plausible. Macbeth’s killing of Duncan is condemned as a sin against god. The taunting images of the dagger and Banquo’s ghost, to the Elizabethan audiences, would be seen as divine justice for Macbeth’s earlier unholy acts. The king could not have been killed with out the supernatural manifestations that occurred; it simply would not have made sense at this time. The reports of Duncan’s horses committing cannibalism, the falcon being killed by the owl and the wild night Lennox describes, ‘lamentings heard i’th’air, strange screams of death / And prophesying with events accents / Of significance of dire combustion and confused events’, this unnatural distortion of the food chain and mayhem in the natural world acts as a metaphor for Macbeth’s heinous crimes. It is also precisely what the contemporary audience would have expected the direct outcome to have been. Witchcraft and the supernatural were their Greek or roman mythology prior to the evolution of science, a way of understanding and explaining the cause and effect in the world.
There is a duality in the function of the hallucinations; they also help Shakespeare to develop the audiences understanding of his character transformation. Macbeth’s conscience plays tricks upon his mind, the dagger and the visions of Banquo provide glimpses into the good hearted nature he once had. Macbeth is an anti-hero, he is presented in all his glory at the beginning of the play, he has been valiant in battle, drowned in noble titles, ‘Thane of Cawdor, Thane of Glamis’ and a model servant to his king and country. Macbeth’s almost super human powers are instantaneously placed along side the evil powers of the witches, ‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen’, one of their functions is to unravel the darker, dormant side of his true aspirations, he is mislead and as the witches reveal his own secret desires and dark ambition, he proves to be easily corrupted,
‘My thought whose murder yet is but fantastical
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not’.
The presence of so much paranormal pressure makes it understandable that he would capitulate. Once a perfect example of honour and strength has now been reduced to nothing more than a deceitful, murderous traitor. Macbeth’s disgraced image is in stark contrast with that of Edward the confessor, the English kings’ benign use of his own supernatural power, to heal scrofula by the laying on of the hands, would be revered by the audience, therefore making the atrocious deeds of Macbeth seem even more monstrous.
Theatre was the equivalent to modern day cinema, fascinating to all levels of society, it’s appeal stretched from the lower classes right up to the king himself. In order to inspire and captivate his audience, Shakespeare unleashes his imagination. The outlandish appearance of the witches would excite and mesmerise the audience, ‘How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!’, the hideous ingredients of their cauldron,
‘Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron’
And the fierce, blood thirsty fight scenes,
‘Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd’
would provide adrenaline pumping thrills that would entice the audience.
Witchcraft and the supernatural provide the basis of the play. Macbeth gives an insight into the effect and importance of the paranormal on Elizabethan society, illustrating how it not only satisfied a lot of questions that, to a world that had not yet truly discovered science, would have otherwise been left unanswered but acted as a form of social control, something to fear and respect, acting as an example of what will happen to you if you ensnare yourself with the dark forces.
The ‘Scottish Play’ represents a complete upheaval of contemporary society. The very thought that a king should be murdered was taboo, but as these thoughts are given life,. As these actions unfold, the pyramid of life completely self destructs,
Shakespeare draws out the iniquity in Macbeth through a number of different processes including both his own ambitions and those of his wife, yet it is the witches that represent the unquestionable evil in the play. To the audience, they symbolize a plausible explanation for Macbeth’s plunge into darkness, their unearthly ability blinding him with the power of temptation and dragging him downwards.