William Shakespeare's Macbeth, written in the period of 1601-1608, is a powerful
play 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 Queen
Elizabeth I. Although, in his time, he was sparing with stage directions, he writes in a
style which gives us a vivid picture of the characters themselves without having to see
the play, or, in the case of Macbeth, he cleverly keeps us confused
Possibly the most peculiar of the characters in Macbeth are the three witches, or
the weird sisters. They appear in the first scene of the play, and Shakespeare does this for
a number of reasons. First, the fact that they are witches portrays evil themes since
witches are a universal symbol for an advocate of the devil. They themselves foreshadow
bad events to come. To add to the witches' theme of evil, Shakespeare uses the cliched
background 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 seem
to be enjoying paradox, inverting moral values like 'fair' and 'foul', and also shouting
that they will meet Macbeth 'when the battle's lost, and won'. This tells us two things:
that there is a battle going on and Macbeth is somehow involved, but also the feeling that
they do not care who wins the battle that is going on, a battle we are told little about until
scene two. However, Shakespeare is obviously using the witches for a reason: to subtly
give some background about the play. This is another of his great writing techniques: he
tells the audience more than it thinks it knows, without realising it.
We are told they 'hover through the foul and filthy air', which also confu...