Role of witches in Macbeth

-

Shakespeare’s use of witches in his famous play Macbeth is indeed a common contemporary theatrical device of the time. However, he reaches the situation and the characters to such a psychological state that we are somehow convinced at the rationality of the irrationality of the witches. They have been used to lessen the responsibility of the hero’s killing a legitimate, old and virtuous king, King Duncan.

In order to misguide the hero, Macbeth who has been presented at first as brave, noble, gentle, loyal to the king and loved by all,  Shakespeare here applies, a device, the witches whose task is to misguide and confuse people and distort reality. To them,
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
They call Macbeth the “thane of Glamis” which he already possess, and the future “thane of Cawdor” and the king hereafter. Next when he, having returned from a victorious battlefield, is informed the king’s reward to him the “thane of Cawdor”, he becomes confused and frightened that two of the prophecies have constantly proved, and
          “[t]he greatest is behind”

Here, it is arguable that some sort of hidden ambition was already in his mind and so the “horrid image” of some mischievous deed could “unfix” his hair. Doktor Alessandro De Vivo (2009:2) comments,
“So we can say that the temptation was already in Macbeth’s mind and the prophesies of the witches reinforces this temptation.” (p.2)
However some critics want to see the witches as the agents of fate, yet Macbeth is responsible. Richard Andersen (2009:106) comments,
Fate, as represented by the three witches, influences Macbeth, but Macbeth is responsible for his behavior and consequences. (p.106)
Actually, it doesn’t matter who tells you what to do, if you committed the crime, you are responsible.  If you do it, it’ is your fault.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Postcolonial Study of Heart of Darkness

-
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is one of the most discussed and controversial texts in postcolonial study. It shows the nature and effect of European colonialism in Africa . At the same time, it attacks the colonizers as well, though Conrad can not escape the attack of some post colonial critics like Chinua Achebe for his “dehumanizing” the Africans. Almost all the characters in Marlow's tale take part in the colonialist enterprise for selfish purposes. The narrator expresses that the target of the colonial expedition in different times has been Congo , the heart of darkness which has been the mission for many Europeans “bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire” Here the symbols "the sword" and "the torch” refer to brutal forces colonial enterprise and to the negation of the native culture by the so called light of civilization.           Marlow's aunt is pleased wi
Read more

The character of Helen in The Iliad

-
Helen   in Greek mythology,  the daughter of  Zeus   and   Leda  (or  Nemesis ),  wife of King  Menelaus  of  Sparta  is thought to be the most beautiful woman in the world.    Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War . Anyone reading about this mythic character does not obtain any unified perspective by various writers. Some writers including Homer take on entirely negative views of Helen. While other writers bear both positive and complex views. Now we will evaluate the character of Helen in The Iliad . Though Helen does not have any active part in Homer’s The Iliad —she appeares before us only six times, all the incidents take place for her. The exquisite beauty of Helen is well known. If anyone wants to refer to any beauty, he mostly uses allusion, simile or metaphor of Helen, the paragon of beauty. Even characters like Dr. Faustus in Marlowe ’s Dr. Faustus long for having Helen beside them— “Sweet Helen, make me immotal with a kiss— Her lips suck forth my
Read more

Search for Identity in A House For Mr. Biswas

-
Vidyadhar Suraj Prasad Naipaul, an expatriate from Trinidad, is a product of post-imperialist society whose primary business as a novelist is to project carefully the complex fate of individuals in a cross-cultural society. In his magnum opus, A House for Mr. Biswas, Naipaul deals with the problems of fragmentation, frustration, alienation, and exile, more definitely the identity crisis of an individual. The novel tells the story of its protagonist, Mr. Biswas from birth to death in different phases, and his problems of identity crisis. Born with six fingers, a symbol of bad luck for his father and family, Mohun feels an alien and an outsider even in his own family and in his own Indian world. Thus, Naipaul portrays the complexity of the relationship between a man and his origins and his inability to escape from it.  Yet Mohun searches for his own identity “I am just somebody. Nobody at all” (279). Unlike his father and brothers’ identity of labourers, Mr. Biswas’s identit
Read more