The Role of the Supernatural in Macbeth and It's Effect on the Audience

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The Role of the Supernatural in Macbeth and It's Effect on

the Audience

Shakespeare knew that history provided fantastic material for plays.

War, conflict, ambition and the downfall of great rulers just being

some.

Shakespeare, earlier in his career, had written a lot of his

historical based plays around Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles of

England, Scotland and Ireland". It was through reading these that

Shakespeare found the story of Macbeth. Shakespeare was immediately

touched by the story and he knew that it was brilliant material for a

play.

Shakespeare used the basic storyline but he developed it a lot further

and adapted it so that it could be acted on stage. He added, altered

and removed parts to achieve maximum dramatic effect.

Macbeth was written for and intended for King James I's viewing. We

know this because the play has many echoes of James' interests.

Banquo

Holinshed had included an elaborate family tree in his "Chronicles of

England, Scotland and Ireland" series. This showed King James' decent

from Banquo. Unlike Holinshed, Shakespeare did not make Banquo an

accomplice to Duncan's murder. This would, have no doubt, pleased the

King who hated Regicide's (King killers). It actually turned out that

Banquo had never even existed. He had just been invented by Holinshed

as the source of the Stuart monarchy.

Witchcraft

King James' interest in witches and witchcraft was very well known.

In 1509 he was the alleged subject of a witch attack. The witches who

had supposedly carried out this attack were found out and taken to

trial. One of the witches' stories was unbelievable. Her name was

Agnes ...

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...nto evil, he doesn't, not for one single

moment, rise from it. Once starting his descent, he carries on falling

and falling until the point at which he is so evil that it seems like

the devil himself is next to him. I think that as the play develops,

the influence of the supernatural on Macbeth decreases. Although this

decreases, Macbeth still becomes more evil. I think that after the

killing of the King, Macbeth starts to rely less and less on the

supernatural.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the play of Macbeth. I think that

Shakespeare develops the theme of the supernatural very well and very

cleverly as the play develops. The atmosphere and certain points in

the play have a massive affect on the audience, not so much now as

they would have when this play was first written, but they do still

have a great effect.

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