Macbeth: Superstitions :: Free Macbeth Essays

Macbeth: Superstitions The tragedy of Macbeth was written by Shakespeare in 1606 and produced in 1610. Macbeth is the most concentrated of Shakespeare's tragedies. The action gushes forward with great speed from the beginning to end. The main characters in the play are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, who are very noble, but their evil ambition ultimately causes their downfall and death. The play focuses around evil, greed and the supernatural. The play was written by Shakespeare for the king at that time, since he was a big believer of witches and the supernatural. Supernatural is classified as the unnatural or the explainable mysteries of our universe. In Shakespeare's time many people would relate many of the unusual happening against the supernatural, since this was the most simplistic of an answer to give. Elizabethan's have several beliefs in superstitions. Some of these superstitions include that they believe in witches, ghosts, destiny, and the foretelling of the future. This essay will investigate superstitions and how they are used in the play Macbeth. Witches were believed by many people in Shakespeare's day. The supernatural was believed by everyone from the educated to the non-educated. When something was not explainable they would relate that problem to the supernatural, even though today that same problem was explainable in scientific terms. The witches in this play are named by Shakespeare as the "weird Sisters". These witches had all the features of witches in those days; old people, dirty broken clothe and come together in groups of three. These witches have many animal's but in this play - a cat, and a toad are used - who are actually evil spirits who have taken this form. In Macbeth we here about the owl quite often which has to relate to the witches. The owl gives a sense of scariness which makes the paly thrilling to read. It keeps the reader hooked to the play and the suspense increases with every scary sound. Macbeth had many nightmares, which were caused by the witches, even so hallucinations, such as the "air-drawn dagger." that Macbeth seen before he went to kill Duncan. The very - word "nightmare," often called in Shakespeare's time "the riding of the witch", which refers to a witch riding wildly through the night on horseback, visiting bad dreams on her victims. Supernatural is the unusual, unseen, and the unknown. The supernatural occurs in many parts of the play. The supernatural occurs in the appearances of the witches, in the strange behaviour in nature on the night of Duncan's murder, in the appearance of Banquo's ghost, in the apparitions with their prophecies,