Supernatural In Macbeth Essay, Research Paper
The supernatural plays a large role within the play Macbeth. This is seen in all of the scenes where the witches appear, the changes in nature during the night when Duncan was killed, in the apparitions of the prophecies, and with the air-drawn dagger that guides Macbeth towards his victim.The apparitions in act four are parallel to those in the beginning of the play. The helmeted head represents Macbeth, and repeats his fear of Macduff. The bloody child represents Macduff, so this give Macbeth assurance of his royalty. This is shown in the quote AThe power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.@ (Act four, scene one). Macduff=s birth was unnatural. The crowned child bearing a tree represents Malcolm. This too gave Macbeth a feeling of power because he would never be harmed until Birnam Wood would come to Dunsinane Hill.If Macbeth did not take the immediate interpretation of the first three predictions, and looked for an alter meaning then he may not have been overconfident which led him to his self destruction. Now comes the most interesting of the supernatural contained within the novel. This is the witches. They are very closely associated with the number three. They are a group of three and there are three prophecies. They had the power to tell the future and create storms. These are still today thought to be truly fictious. They are also thought to have no appearance. This is told to us by Banquo when he mentions that they are women but are bearded. He also tells us that they are withered, their clothes are wild and careless, their hands are coarse and rough, Achoppy finger@, and that their lips are Askinny@ and colourless.These witches have a very strong relation to Macbeth. One of which is that they represent Macbeths evil ambitions. After Act 1, Scene 3, they are not seen by anyone but Macbeth, and in Act 4, Scene 2, they are not seen by Lennox when they leave the cavern. Even though they are tied strongly to Macbeth they do not guide him, they only represent his ambitions and dreams. After the first two predictions had come true, Macbeth commits murder in order to make the third one come true. In the latter half of the novel, there are three more prophecies that come true. These however are to bring about the ruin of Macbeth and the uprise of Macduff.The night that Macbeth goes to commit the murder there are many changes that happen to the weather. In those days it was thought that when there was bad weather that a king would be killed or harmed in some way. This just added to the plot and made it more intriguing to the reader. The floating dagger in Act 2, Scene 1, reveals Macbeths imagination. As he goes to grab the dagger it starts to float away from him, leading him to Duncan=s room. This floating dagger is fictious, and so Macbeth reaches and pulls out his own dagger. Macbeth calls this floating dagger a Afatal vision@. He calls it this because it is the vision that will be fatal to Duncan. There is more supernatural mentioned as it describes how Macbeth moves in the night like Aa ghost@ with Aravishing strides@.Throughout the play Macbeth, there appears to be a lot of supernatural contained within. This is seen by the witches prophecies about Macbeth, which enables Macbeth to have the courage to murder in cold blood to become the King of Scotland. This is also seen by the environmental changes during the night of the death, and the imagery that gets Macbeth to the door of Duncan to perform the murder. The supernatural is what made Macbeth perform the horrible actions because he did not look deeper into the prophecies. It is also what had eventually led to his death from Macduff.
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