Witches Flashcards
Intro:
The witches are used as the element of the supernatural and to incite fear into the audience. They are also Shakespeare’s way of criticizing the male-dominated society of Jacobean England. They are the most powerful characters in the play and create an eerie atmosphere due to their unnaturalness. Shakespeare chose witches because King James I had an interest in them as they were creatures that people believed in in the Jacobean times.
Paragraph 1:
The idea of fear manifests initially through the characterisation of the witches. Witches at the time were seen as evil and naturally this provoked fear in both a Jacobean audience and people in general at the time period. “ When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” The use of the listing of the unusual weather patterns creates an atmosphere of fear as the weather mentioned often connotes evil and darkness. This in turn implies a force of evil will arise. This phrase sparks initial fear in the audience of Macbeth at the time of its creation as not only were witches regarded as the root of all evil but they also explicitly imply that they will reappear repeatedly throughout the play through the use of the lexis “ when”. Also due to the soft-sounding alliteration in the first sentence, this implies that the witch finds comfort and solace in being a witch and an odd sense of intimacy as people generally revert to soft-sounding words, for example “when”, when they are comfortable with the subject. The sense of intimacy is thus created as the soft ‘w’ is quiet, much like a sigh and in turn, suggests the audience is very close to the witch as sighs are very hard to hear. This heavily juxtaposes the reaction of both societal and religious values at the time. Through the manipulation of Lexus, Shakespeare sparks the theme of fear in the audience and also foreshadows the arrival of a newfound fear in the form of Macbeth.
Paragraph 2:
Shakespeare uses the description of the witches and their powerfulness to criticise the male-dominated society of the Elizabethan era. Banquo describes the witches as “You should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so”. The modal verb of ‘should’ shows Banquo’s hesitation of immediately assigning a gender. As with their supernatural powers, their ambiguous gender can also be seen as unnatural because women do not usually have beards. Their beards symbolise their influence in the male-dominated society and show their power through their masculine feature. This shows the criticism of Shakespeare to the male-dominated society because it means that you have to have masculine features to be powerful which is ridiculous. The ambiguous gender creates the dichotomy of natural vs unnatural in this play where natural is good and unnatural is bad. Shakespeare used the witches to ridicule the male-dominated society and create fear in the audience.
Paragraph 3:
Shakespeare uses the ugliness of the witches which is thought of as evilness to show the true evilness of mankind. This is seen through: “eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog”. Shakespeare deliberately makes the witches and even their words ugly which makes the audience think that they are evil since they are unnatural. Shakespeare chose strange parts of various animals’ body parts to make the witches potion like the ‘eye of newt’ which one would think is slimy and therefore disgusting. However, when you look at the whole play you will realize that the actions of the Macbeths are far eviler than those of the witches. All they can be accused of is being ugly and putting the idea in Macbeth’s head that he could be king. However, it was Macbeth who was controlled by his ambition that went through with the act of regicide. The witches are used as a comparison to the Macbeths evil in which you can find that the Macbeths were much eviler since he slaughtered people not animals like the witches. Shakespeare used the witches to make the Macbeths look even eviler by using the evil force of the witches as a comparison.
Conclusion:
Witches are used to strike fear in the audience through their ability to change fate as well as to appease King James. They are powerful to show what power seems to be in the Jacobean era. They also help the audience to distinguish between disgust and evil.
