A desert place macbeth

Explanatory notes below for Act 1, Scene 1 From Macbeth. Thomas Marc Parrott. New York: American Book Co. Line numbers have been altered. The first scene of Macbeth strikes the keynote of the play. The desert place, the wild storm, the appearance of the witches, "the wayward rhythm" of their songs, all help to prepare us for a drama in which a human soul succumbs to the supernatural suggestions of evil and ranges itself along with the witches on the devil's side.

We hear of a battle that is even now being fought, we hear of the trysting-place of the witches at the conclusion of the fray, and last of all we hear the name of the man they are planning to meet. No sooner has the name "Macbeth" been uttered than the calls of the attendant spirits are heard and the witches hurry off.

The action of the scene is over with the naming of the man against whose soul these ministers of darkness are plotting. This familiar was a gift from the Devil, a pact believed to have been sealed by the exchange of blood. The torturing of suspects to elicit confessions was the accepted norm. A year after James took the throne in an Act of Parliament established that anyone found guilty of any form of witchcraft should be executed. James himself was fascinated by witches and witchcraft in general.

He even went so far as to publish a book, Demonology, on the subject. Perhaps having survived a assassination attempt by a group of witches, while he was still the King of Scotland, it is no surprise that he was interested in the subject. Shakespeare clearly wanted to tap into this vein of royal and public fascination with Macbeth.

For some more information on attitudes towards witchcraft in the era check out this fascinating article by Carole Levin. So, back to the scene. What do the witches say and do? What is their purpose here, at the very opening of the play? The very first thing the First Witch does is establish that this meeting is merely a precursor to a more momentous one.

I provide a little background information on the nature of medieval warfare in my analysis of Act 1 Scene 2. The battle will obviously prove to be a joyous victory for one of the competing armies. Yet for every winner in a contest there must be a loser. Shakespeare is establishing that this duality issue will be one that runs throughout the play. Generally, in a play or novel there are three ways we can learn about a character — from what they say, what they do and what others say about them.

Our very first mention of Macbeth comes from the lips of a witch, a feared and hated symbol of darkness and evil. This is foreshadowing of the most obvious sort. It forces the reader to consider what sort of man Macbeth might be, even before he is introduced to the audience. This is the dramatist shaping the attitude of his audience in a powerful way.

Expectations are being created. Firstly, it denotes that the meeting between the witches and Macbeth will take place at dusk, amidst the dying of the light. A time with ominous associations. A liminal time caught between light and dark, which links thematically to the idea of duality and conflict theme. Remember Witches were believed to have a limited ability to see into the future. She may also simply be making an educated guess. The Witches reference their demon familiars, presumably reacting to their cries and calls from off-stage.

This would send a chill down the spine of the Jacobean audience, who would have thrilled to such tales and superstitions. Their final words would have continued to play on the expectations of the audience, yet once again Shakespeare makes an image do double duty.

The line establishes that: 1 The deeds they delight in would be seen as evil by normal folk in the same way that the simple goodness of normal folk would be abhorrent to them. This is again foreshadowing. Much of the deception and betrayal that is to come revolves around this central conceit. On the simplest level — appearances can deceive. We cannot take what we see at face value. Often the truth of things is obscured. Alternative — One particularly interesting way of interpreting this line and indeed the whole scene is to view the witches conversation as a kind of unholy incantation.

One idea that I will raise later on in the guide is the idea of predestination. It was a theory central to the Calvinist branch of the Protestant religion that was gaining ground in Europe in the late 16th Century. In this light we can see the witches as agents of Fate.

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Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough! Alarums Retreat. ROSS Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: He only lived but till he was a man; The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died. ROSS Ay, on the front. Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And so, his knell is knoll'd. Here comes newer comfort.

My thanes and kinsmen, Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland In such an honour named. The beauty of young love is a theme in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Following are important themes in Macbeth. Ambition Overweening ambition, or inordinate lust for power, ultimately brings ruin. For ignoring this ancient rule of living, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth pay with their lives.

Plotting against a king was a topic much on the minds of Englishmen when Shakespeare was working on Macbeth. The reason was an uprising against King James I in His opponents conspired to kill the king, the queen, their oldest son, and members of Parliament by exploding barrels of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords and the adjacent royal palace. However, before the conspirators could execute their plan—scheduled for Nov. They tortured him until he disclosed the details of the conspiracy, which became known in English history as the Gunpowder Plot.

He went to the gallows in January After his death, his body was carved into pieces and displayed in public as a warning of what happens to anyone who tries to overthrow the king. Deceit In Macbeth, evil frequently wears a pretty cloak. But the Macbeths soon discover that only bad has come of their deed, and their very lives—and immortal souls—are in jeopardy. On the battlefield, Macbeth is a lion and a leader of men. But when the witches tempt him by prophesying that he will become king of Scotland, the lure of power is too strong for him to resist and he decides to commit the most heinous of sins: murder.

Later, however, his conscience gnaws at him and his resolve weakens. Lady Macbeth then steps in and, like a demon from hell, fortifies his resolve with strong words. Together, they make plans for the murder. Guilt Guilt haunts the evildoer. When they hear knocking moments later at the castle door, it is the sound of their guilt as much as the sound of the knocker, Macduff. Presence of Mysterious Forces Mysterious, seemingly preternatural forces are at work throughout the play. The presence of the otherworldly begins when the witches confront Macbeth and Banquo with prophecies.

A short while later, Macbeth hallucinates: Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? His wife explains to the guests that her husband is unwell. When Macbeth meets with the witches again, they conjure apparitions of an armed head, a bloody child, and a crowned child, each of which make predictions about events to come.

English essayist and literary critic William Hazlitt said the following about the influence of fate and the supernatural in Macbeth: The overwhelming pressure of preternatural agency urges on the tide of human passion with redoubled force. He is not equal to the struggle with fate and conscience. He now "bends up each corporal instrument to the terrible feat;" at other times his heart misgives him, and he is cowed and abashed by his success.

In thought he is absent and perplexed, sudden and desperate in act, from a distrust of his own resolution. His energy springs from the anxiety and agitation of his mind. His blindly rushing forward on the objects of his ambition and revenge, or his recoiling from them, equally betrays the harassed state of his feelings.

Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. London: C. Reynell, Vengeance After the murder of Duncan, revenge becomes an important theme. Banquo introduces this theme after Macbeth's henchmen strike him down. With his dying words, Banquo tells his son: "O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!

Later, Macbeth thinks he sees the ghost of Banquo. Worried that the apparition is a harbinger of revenge against him, he tells Lady Macbeth, "It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood" 3. But Macbeth does not wait for revenge to visit him.

After learning that Macduff is urging Duncan's son, Malcolm, to take Macbeth's throne, Macbeth has his men murder Duncan's children and wife. Revenges burn in them. Shakespeare was particularly adept at creating vivid imagery. Following are examples. Darkness Shakespeare casts a pall of darkness over the play to call attention to the evil deeds unfolding and the foul atmosphere in which they are taking place.

At the very beginning of the play, Shakespeare introduces an image of dark clouds suggested in words spoken by the First Witch: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep: merciful powers, Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature Gives way to in repose! Bradley writes: It is remarkable that almost all the scenes which at once recur to memory take place either at night or in some dark spot.

The vision of the dagger, the murder of Duncan, the murder of Banquo, the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth, all come in night-scenes. The witches dance in the thick air of a storm, or, 'black and midnight hags' receive Macbeth in a cavern. The blackness of night [makes] the hero a thing of fear, even of horror; and that which he feels becomes the spirit of the play.

Harrison, eds. Shakespeare's Critics: From Jonson to Auden. Ann Arbor, Mich. Sometimes it is the hot blood of the Macbeths as they plot murder; sometimes it is the spilled, innocent blood of their victims. It is also blood of guilt that does not wash away and the blood of kinship that drives enemies of Macbeth to action. In general, the images of blood—like the images of darkness—bathe the play in a macabre, netherworldly atmosphere. Here are examples from the play: Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty!

Lady Macbeth: 1. Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. There's no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes Macbeth: 2. Donalbain: 2. Knickerbock and H. Willard Reninger write: "The very title of Macbeth conjures up the dense, suffocating metaphoric climate of primeval evil, darkness, blood, violated sleep, and nature poisoned at its source.

New York: Holt, page Adam and Eve Critic Maynard Mack , who taught at Yale University, and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud both noticed that Lady Macbeth resembles the biblical Eve in her eagerness to tempt Macbeth to eat forbidden fruit in this case, murder and that Macbeth resembles Adam in his early passivity.

Supporting their views are these two passages in seventh scene of the first act, in which Lady Macbeth goads her wavering husband: First Passage: Lady Macbeth tells her husband it is cowardly to hesitate like a scared cat. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire?

Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would," Like the poor cat i' the adage? What beast was't, then, That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And, to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man.

Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both: They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done to this.

After the witches play to his ambition with a prophecy that he will become king, he cannot keep this desire under control. He realizes that Duncan is a good king—humble, noble, virtuous. But he rationalizes that a terrible evil grips him that he cannot overcome. To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other.

Ordinary language that does not contain a figure of speech is called literal language. Language that contains a figure of speech is called figurative language. Figurative language is also sometimes called imagery because it often presents an image to the mind. Shakespeare was a master at creating memorable figures of speech.