How Does Shakespeare Portray the Witches in Macbeth?
William Shakespeare's Macbeth, written in the period of 1601-1608, is a powerfulplay which compels us to sympathise with a cold-blooded murderer. There are many,varying, characters, all of which have somehow made a mark on English literature today.The way in which Shakespeare portrays his characters is in a style that pleased QueenElizabeth I. Although, in his time, he was sparing with stage directions, he writes in astyle which gives us a vivid picture of the characters themselves without having to seethe play, or, in the case of Macbeth, he cleverly keeps us confusedPossibly the most peculiar of the characters in Macbeth are the three witches, orthe weird sisters. They appear in the first scene of the play, and Shakespeare does this fora number of reasons. First, the fact that they are witches portrays evil themes sincewitches are a universal symbol for an advocate of the devil. They themselves foreshadowbad events to come. To add to the witches' theme of evil, Shakespeare uses the clichedbackground of thunder and lightening, which also represents wickedness and confusion.Confusion is a word that comes to mind a lot in the first scene. The witches seemto be enjoying paradox, inverting moral values lik
The mental account shows thewitches as spiteful, mean, yet cunning creatures. Without the witches, Macbeth would have never had theencouragement to kill the King. This, again, adds to theconfusion, because we do not know whether this habit of sharing lines is due to magicaltelepathy, or whether it is simply rehearsed. He says that him becoming King (who is a prosperous gentleman) 'standsnot within the prospect of belief, / no more than to be Cawdor', which, according toMacbeth, is highly unlikely. So we haveMacbeth and Banquo utterly repulsed at the site of the three ugly women, who may justas well be men, enquiring why they 'stop [their] way / With such a prophetic greeting?'. (As Shakespeare uses so few stage directions, experts disagree on whether thewitches actually vanish into the air, of whether they simply slip away into the fog. He also says that they are 'so withered, andso wild in their attire / That look not like the inhabitants of the earth'. When Macbeth enters, he uses the words 'foul and fair', which links him already to thewitches' evil. They say that Banquo is 'lesser than Macbeth, but greater', 'not sohappy, yet much happier', and that '[he] shall get kings, though [he] be none'. The witches also try to stir up trouble by being obscure about Macbeth and hisnoble friend, Banquo. Indeed, Shakespeare's writing style is one which anyone can learn from. Macbeth knows he is Thane of Glamis, buthe does not yet know that he will become Thane of Cawdor. The other point that must be made about the witches is that they are deceitful,working together to encourage Macbeth to eventually kill King Duncan, his loyal friendand companion. Scene three shows thewitches as malicious, as one of the witches has been 'killing swine', and another has left asailor stranded on the open sea for 567 days, because his wife refused to give her any ofher chestnuts. There is no regular rhyming pattern in the first scene, and when one starts toprogress, it is interrupted by another rhyme scheme: it is very unpredictable, but this is tobe expected, as they are witches.
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