The Dramatic Impact of Witches on William Shakespeare's Macbeth

The Dramatic Impact of Witches on William Shakespeare's Macbeth

The inclusion of witches in Macbeth heightens the dramatic impact of

the play because in the time William Shakespeare wrote Macbeth many of

the general public did not know to much about witches, so when witches

were included in Macbeth many people were shocked which made the play

more dramatic because many people did not expect witches to be

included in the play. Also witches in Shakespeare's time were treated

very poorly In some cases witches were pricked with a special needle

to see if they were immune from pain so these type of cases heighten

the dramatic impact of the play because the general public knew how

witches were treated and how powerful they were.

The introduction of witches at this time was particularly dramatic

because people knew how vicious they were because at that time

pamphlets were put on sale describing the lurid details of witchcraft

trials, so people knew how vile witches were. This made it

particularly dramatic because witches were really the centre of

attention at that time as convicted witches were being executed so

putting witches in a play would have been very dramatic. In the text

"witches and witchcraft" it says "Witches could predict the future,

fly, sail in sieves, bring on night in daytime, causes fogs and

tempests, and kill animals". This shows introducing witches at this

time would have been massively dramatic because there were people who

would have been appalled to see witches in a play because of all the

attention that was on witches at that time and what people knew about

which was that they were mighty women who had the power t...

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...ay at that time would have

been very dramatic because of the attention that was on witches and

the consequences of a woman being convicted as a witch at the time

Macbeth was first performed. I think that the inclusion of witches in

Macbeth does not really heighten the dramatic impact of the play for

today's audience because most of the general public today are not as

fickle as people in Macbeth's time and because not many people today

believe in witches or witchcraft, so witches in Macbeth would not

really make Macbeth more dramatic on today's audience. Also since

Macbeth wad first performed, many television programmes, films and

plays have included witches in their production so today's audience

wouldn't really feel that surprised to see witches in Macbeth, so

therefore not heightening the dramatic impact of the play.