What is it that constitutes great writing in our society? What justifications can award a writer with such prestigious honor as nationally establishing a play or sonnet as truly fantastic? Whatever questions people strive to define as substantial reasoning for greatness lie in all of Shakespeare's writings. Parallel to the rest of his writings, in act one of Macbeth, Shakespeare applies such items as mood, characterization, motifs and themes to unfold throughout the play.
             The mood of Shakespeare's Macbeth is dark, brooding, and evil, which is developed firstly in the opening act by both the witches and Macbeth's sickening mind. The mood of the play from beginning to the end is of devastation, destruction and gloom. The mood of suffering and degrading is emphasized as the play proceeds. This can be foreshadowed to the reader by the first lines of the witches as well as how we can envision Macbeths character itself. The three witches that Macbeth and Banquo meet are also called the "weird sisters."(Macbeth I.ii. 20-25) In Old English wyrd meant "fate." And it is part of their role in the play to act as the forces of fate as well as set the mood of destruction, or at this point, possibilities. Other effects that can impress the mood in the play are...
             At the beginning of the play, the first key definitions are noticed from dialog that distinguishes Macbeth's character as well as other major personalities. Such as when we first hear of Macbeth, he has just cut open an enemy ("unseamed") from belly button ("nave") to throat ("chops"). (I.i.15-26) The king shouts "Oh valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!" (I.i. 27-29) This not only helps the reader establish Macbeth as a brutal and powerful man, but also sets the mood of the play, which is tragedy, murder and evil.
             Another scene that helps set the mood of the play was at the witches gathering when one of the witches shows her friends th
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