How the Witches' Behavior in Act Four Scene One of Macbeth Makes an Impact on Macbeth and Influences His Actions

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How the Witches' Behavior in Act Four Scene One of Macbeth Makes an Impact on Macbeth and Influences His Actions

Act 4, scene 1 links to the rest of the play in a number of important

ways. We know that Macbeth has achieved his position by murdering

King Duncan of Scotland. He has also murdered Banquo, his best friend,

and Macduff’s wife and son because he thought that they were too

suspicious and knew too much about Duncan’s murder, and so they meant

a threat to him. These actions resulted in Macbeth having to cover his

tracks continuously by murdering people.

He describes his mind as “…full of scorpions…”. This metaphor suggests

that is mental state is very confused and he is constantly worried

that someone could discover his guilt. He has also seen the ghost of

Banquo which has made him have an hallucination.

This scene links with Act one, Scene 3 when the witches appear in a

storm and predict Macbeth’s future. In this scene the witches predict

that Macbeth would firstly become Thane of Cawdor and then King of

Scotland. Macbeth’s response to the witches shows that he doesn’t

really believe the witches because he can’t find an explanation to all

of this and he doesn’t understand how the witches could know this,

because both the Thane of Cawdor and the king of Scotland live. We

know this because he states: “Say, from whence you owe this strange

intelligence? Or why upon this blasted heath you stop our way whit

such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you!”. This quotation shows

that he’s not sure if what the witches say is true. Macbeth decides to

seek the witches because he needs further information about them and

in particular ...

... middle of paper ...

...se ideas link to Act four Scene one because in

both scenes Macbeth expresses his desperation towards life.

In may view a modern audience would see Macbeth as someone who tried

to get the throne through a not honest way, and therefore afterwards

he paid the consequences because he didn’t have the mental strength to

support his responsibilities not through continuing to kill other

people; in fact he did continue to kill people until he reached the

point that he couldn’t make it any longer and therefore he has been

killed. I also think that these are the reasons why Macbeth shouldn’t

deserve the sympathy of the audience because at the beginning he was a

loyal and brave soldier who fought for his king, but afterwards he

became addicted to killing and to the witches as he couldn’t make it

on his own after a certain point.

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