Macbeth: ACT I :: essays research papers

These scenes sustain the evasive actions dramatic premisethe witches awakening of Macbeths ambitionand present the main characters and their relationships. At the same time, the first three scenes establish a dark mood that permeates the entire play. The stage directions indicate that the play begins with a storm, and malignant supernatural forces immediately appear in the form of the three witches. From there, the action quickly shifts to a battlefield that is dominated by a sense of the grisliness and cruelty of war. In his description of Macbeth and Banquos heroics, the headman dwells specifically on images of carnage he unseamed him from the nave to th chops, he says, describing Macbeths capital punishment of Macdonald (I.ii.22). The bloody murders that fill the play are foreshadowed by the bloody victory that the Scots win over their enemies.Our initial impression of Macbeth, based on the captains report of his valor and prowess in battle, is immediately complicated by Macb eths obvious fixation upon the witches prophecy. Macbeth is a noble and courageous warrior exactly his reaction to the witches pronouncements emphasizes his great desire for power and prestige. Macbethimmediately realizes that the fulfillment of the prophecy may require conspiracy and murder on his part. He clearly allows himself to consider winning such actions, although he is by no means resolved to do so. His reaction to the prophecy displays a fundamental confusion and inactivity instead of solving to act on the witches claims, or simply dismissing them, Macbeth talks himself into a kind of thoughtful stupor as he tries to work out the situation for himself. In the following scene, Lady Macbeth will emerge and drive the hesitant Macbeth to act she is the will propelling his achievements. Once Lady Macbeth hears of the witches prophecy, Duncans life is doomed.Macbeth contains some of Shakespeares most vivid female characters. Lady Macbeth and the three witches are extremely wi cked, but they are also stronger and more imposing than the men around them. The forbidding witches cast the mood for the entire play. Their rhyming incantations stand out eerily amid the blank verse spoken by the other characters, and their grotesque figures of speech establish a lingering aura. Whenever they appear, the stage directions deliberately link them to unease and lurking chaos in the natural world by insisting on Thunder or Thunder and lightning.Shakespeare has the witches speak in language of contradiction.