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Analysis of Macbeth by William Shakespeare
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This countries most famous script writer composed many plays whichfall into three categories; comedies, histories and tragedies. For anumber of his plays including Macbeth he turned to a historian(Raphael Holinshed) for information.
Shakespeare’s main source for Macbeth was ‘the Chronicles ofScotland’, which was written by Holinshed in 1577. This gaveShakespeare an outline of Macbeth’s career, from the meeting of thewitches, until his death to the hands of Macduff. The idea of themurder of King Duncan was from what was written of an earlier King in‘the Chronicles of Scotland’, who was killed by a trusted subject.
It is important to remember that Macbeth is a tragic hero. Aristotlewas a Greek philosopher, who gave the first version of a tragic hero’sdescription and characteristics. He gave five qualities of a tragichero- is of noble birth, committed great acts, is held in high esteem,is in some ways isolated from others, and has a flaw in his character.Macbeth is also written around key themes, they are- power,corruption, ambition, trust, deception, passion and the supernatural(witches).
During Elizabethan times people were fascinated by the thought ofwitchcraft and wizardry. This was believed by many people throughoutthe reign of Elizabeth I. Prosecution reached terrifying proportions.Between 1560 and 1603 hundreds of people (nearly all women) wereconvicted as witches and executed. Shakespeare used this fascinationof witches in Macbeth to get the audience’s beliefs and fears ofwitches to create tension within the theatre. By having witches in hisplay Shakespeare could reinforce the belief of witches in theaudiences’ minds’.
In scene 1 the third witch mentions Macbeth’s name. This makes theaudience think about why the witches are saying his name so early onin the play. Also the witches talk about meeting Macbeth ‘upon theheath’. The witches are set in a battle field with thunder andlightning. The weather also makes the scene seem supernatural and as
