Supernatural Flashcards
L = paradox/chiasmus. The witches predict MB will be king which is good but lead him to commit murder which is evil, in order to achieve his ambition to be king. Shows equivocation of witches.
‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’
L = metaphor. Banquo realises the witches could be evil agents of the devil and tempt MB to commit sin.
C = reflects James 1’s belief in witches as evil agents, described in his book ‘Daemonologie’. Shakespeare flatters his patron the king by including a subject in which he was interested.
‘instruments of darkness’
D = the ghost is not just supernatural, it is a projection of his guilty conscience after murdering Banquo.
R = ghost terrifies audience; also a warning of how murderers will be punished – dead will come back to haunt them. C = Gunpowder Plot.
‘thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold’
L= rhyming couplet. The know MB has become as evil as they are.
C = It was believed witches could sense the approach of evil.
‘by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes’
The witches decide to deceive Macbeth about his future to punish him.
R/I = Audience may feel MB deserves punishment for his evil or feel sympathy as he shouldn’t have trusted the witches.
‘artificial sprites… shall draw him on in his confusion’
L = metaphor. MB realises he has been deceived by the witches as agents fo the devil and that he has damned his soul to Hell for murdering a king.
C – Divine Right of Kings. Punishment from God.
‘juggling fiends’
