The Witches of Macbeth: Fate, Free Will, and the Influence of Evil

            In the 17^th century, the English believed in the power of the supernatural and the ability of evil to influence otherwise honorable people. Shakespeare’s Macbeth (Mac.) is the story of a loyal and honorable Scottish Thane who becomes a murderous and tyrannical King because he succumbs to the influence of three prophesying witches. Macbeth would never have become a murderous tyrant without the evil actions and influence of these witches.

In the opening scene of the play, the witches reveal their evil strategy to meet with Macbeth and sow the seeds of their plot (Mac. 1.1.1-7). “War plows the soil. Who wins is not what counts. It is what seeds are planted…that determines the future” (Goddard 494). The witches intend to turn Macbeth’s world upside down by planting the seeds of evil that will lead to his downfall.

When the witches tell Macbeth he will be Thane of Cawdor and then King, he insists that the thane of Cawdor is in good health and that “to be king / Stands not within the prospect of belief” (Mac. 1.3.72T74). Macbeth has no thoughts of regicide when he hears the prophecy. Still, “in these opening scenes, the triple repetition of the adjective ‘rapt’ (1.3.55, 141; 1.5.5), connoting a seizing from high, emphasizes that Macbeth is acted upon by forces external and above: the witches, or the three weird sisters” (Langhis 4). The witches focus on manipulating Macbeth’s ambitions to an evil end and he is unable to resist them.

The witches do not provide details and disappear when Macbeth would ask them more information. Soon thereafter, Macbeth learns that he has been chosen to be the new thane of Cawdor, and he starts to take the prophecies seriously, even though Banquo warns that evil may speak truth to cause harm (Mac. 1.5.23-24). Banquo recognizes the danger and exercises his free will: he hears his fate but does not act to hasten it, lest he fall prey to evil influences.

In 17^th century England, people believed in the power of witches. “Though England never had witch hunts of the sort seen in Continental Europe, there was a legal framework for the punishment of witchcraft, and witches were an accepted reality” (Lander 8). The fact that Macbeth is manipulated by the witches indicates that this is a play about sin and the effects of evil influence.

After meeting the witches, the prophecies are obviously on Macbeth’s mind a great deal. In act 1, scene 5, Lady Macbeth reads from a letter that mentions them. She remarks that he is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way” (Mac. 1.5.16-17), implying that on his own, Macbeth would never resort to regicide. She decides to convince him to murder King Duncan to expedite the prophecy that Macbeth will be king. He loves his wife and allows himself to be influenced by her.

            “The sense of urgency which incites the protagonists to commit their errors gains force from the internal necessity of the tragic plot” (Habington 11). Macbeth’s hamartia is directly related to the evil actions and manipulations of the witches; it is similar to that of Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. “Both Macbeth and Brutus underestimate the urgent expressive force that blood will acquire after it has been shed, and both will be marked for death when the allies of their victims rally to oppose them” (Habington 73). Macbeth is a warrior who has just participated in a bloody war on behalf of King Duncan. The world is in upheaval. Urged by his wife to commit a murder that he feels ambivalent about, Macbeth miscalculates what the response will be to his having murdered Duncan. That is Macbeth’s fatal mistake.

“Macbeth’s adversaries do not prosecute and sentence him for high crimes and misdemeanors; he is hunted down and killed as a sinful blight on the body politic. The first crime is complete early in the second act, but the sinfulness of that one crime alone lingers as a momentous issue until the end of the play” (Colston 61). Macbeth isn’t a play about crime; it’s a play about a man who subverts the natural order of loyalty and murders family and friends at the prodding of unnatural influences.

By the fourth act of the play, Macbeth actively seeks out the witches. When the second witch says “By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this was comes” (Mac. 4.1.44-45), she is referring to Macbeth. The witches have won. They have taken an honorable man and made him into a wicked one. He demands to know further prophecies, regardless of their evil origin.

The apparitions yield ambiguous prophecies, but Macbeth is so consumed by his arrogance and his drive to maintain his kingship, that he misinterprets them; the witches do not correct his misinterpretation. Two of the three final prophecies occur during the play: Macbeth should beware Macduff, none of woman born kills Macbeth, and he is safe until Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. The last prophecy is only an image of eight crowned kings walking by, with the last carrying a mirror and followed by Banquo’s ghost. (Mac. 4.1.112-123). The witches refuse to tell him the meaning of the final vision and once again disappear. Macbeth is doomed, even if he fails to see it himself.

In act 5, scene 5, Macbeth receives news that the trees of Birnam Wood are advancing and recognizes that he has misjudged that prophecy, but he still clings to the prophecy that no man born of woman can harm him and fights Malcolm’s forces. Macbeth meets up with Macduff in act 5, scene 5 and learns that Macduff was born by caesarian section. Evil has triumphed and the great man has fallen. Audiences experience catharsis when Macbeth dies, and the way is paved for the final prophecy about Banquo’s heirs to come true. Sadly, had Macbeth exercised the free will that Banquo did, he would have resisted the witches’ evil influences, and the entire story might have been different.

Works Cited

Colston, Ken. "Macbeth and the Tragedy of Sin." Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 13.4 (2010): 60-95. Project MUSE. Web. 2 Apr. 2014. 

Goddard, Harold C. The Meaning of Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951. Print.

Habington, William Andrew. "Necessary Evil: The Interplay of Compulsion and Necessity in Doctor Faustus and Macbeth." Order No. MQ36458 Dalhousie University (Canada), 1998. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. 

Lander, Jesse M. Introduction. Macbeth. By William Shakespeare. Ed. Jesse M. Lander. New York, NY: Sterling Signature, 2012. Print.

Langhis, Unhae. “Character and Daemon, Fate and Free Will.” Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Critical Contexts Series. Ed. Boris Drenkov, Howrah: Roman Books, 2013. Academia.edu. Web. 9 Mar. 2014. 

Shakespeare, William. “Macbeth.” The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Ed. W.G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright. Vol. 2. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., n.d. 792-815. Print.

Richard III: Tragic Hero

            As a result of Shakespeare’s eponymous play, Richard III is considered conniving, murderous, and cruel. The full title of the play is The Tragedy of Richard III (R3), which seems incongruous since Richard appears to be a consummate villain; yet the play is a tragedy. It contains the necessary elements of an Aristotelian tragedy: a high born hero who falls from greatness through his own tragic mistake.

The structure of Richard III fits what Aristotle describes in his Poetics. The plot of Shakespeare’s Richard III is intimate: it involves the royal classes, their relatives and close friends. As the younger brother of King Edward IV, Richard, Duke of Gloucester is at the top of the social order in England. His hamartia sets in motion murders and executions, with Richard killing off friends and family members in a tyrannical reign. In final scene of the play, Richmond kills Richard and declares “the bloody dog is dead” (R3 5.5.3); Richard has lost everything and has been killed in a civil war of his own making. This is the classic Aristotelian plot structure of tragedy.

It would be easy to argue that this play is not a tragedy because Richard is not a hero, claiming as proof that in the opening scene of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Richard III, Richard himself says “since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days” (R3 1.1.28). However, it’s important to note that Richard doesn’t say that he is a villain. He may be plotting, but he hasn’t actually done anything evil at this point. He isn’t very well liked, but Aristotle’s Poetics does not list likeability as a requirement for a tragic hero.

When Aristotle considers tragedy in his Poetics, he says, “most important of all is the structure of the incidents…character comes in as subsidiary to the action” (Aristotle 25). Richard is different than most tragic heroes, but in the opening scenes of the play, Shakespeare paints a portrait of someone who is clever, witty, and intelligent; someone who is royal but has been dealt a cruel hand by fate giving him physical deformities.

In Act I, scene 3, Queen Elizabeth tells Lord Grey that Richard has been chosen to be protector when the King dies, which will make Richard the de facto ruler until Edward’s son is old enough to take the throne. Richard obviously starts the play as a great man, a hero. Audiences are intended to feel at least some pity for this deformed man, who is disliked and ridiculed by almost every other character in the play, even if Shakespeare couldn’t make Richard too sympathetic since he was overthrown by an ancestor of the sitting queen.

Richard’s hamartia is that he engineers the death of his brother Clarence in Act I. Richard didn’t need to have his brother Clarence killed to gain power. Richard had already been chosen as protector, and was going to rule England until the prince was old enough. However, having successfully engineered one death, Richard’s ruthless ambition to be king consumes him and he begins coldly removing anyone in his way. By Act IV, scene 3, he has had the princes, Lord Grey, Earl Rivers, Sir Vaughn, Lord Hastings, and his own wife murdered.

In Act V, when Buckingham says “Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men to turn their own points on their masters’ bosoms” (R3 5.1.23), he is speaking as much about Richard as he is about himself. Buckingham recognizes that Richard has brought about his own downfall. Richard also has this recognition and his “recognition is coincident with a reversal of fortune” (Aristotle 39), appropriate for the tragic hero, happens in Act V, scene 3, when he proclaims that no one loves him, and why should they, since he does not pity himself (R3 4.3.200).

At the end of the play, the audience is not left with a sense of poetic justice, but with feelings aligned to the tragedy they have witnessed, feelings appropriate for having witnessed a tragedy. While Richard III is not the perfect tragic hero, he is, nonetheless, a tragic hero and the eponymous play, The Tragedy of Richard III, is indeed a tragedy.

Works Cited

Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher. London: MacMillan & Sons, 1895 Internet Archive. University of Toronto Libraries. Web. 5 April 2014.  

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Richard III. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster. Paperback, 2012. Print.

The Commedia dell’Arte Influence on A Midsummer Night’s Dream

     Commedia dell’Arte was a theatre tradition that began during the Renaissance in Italy and spread across Europe. “There is no evidence that [Shakespeare] ever saw a Commedia company perform, but there are such strong links and comparisons, he must have heard some very accurate accounts of it” (“Commedia dell’Arte”). A Midsummer Night’s Dream includes not only the interweaving of stories across social classes found in Commedia dell’Arte, but some of its stock characters. As a result, the play remains one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies.

     Commedia dell’Arte incorporates three “classes” of characters in its performances. These are the vecchi, the zanni, and the innamorati (“French Theater in the 18^th Century”). The vecchi are the upper class or masters. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, these characters are represented by Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, Oberon, and Titania. Theseus is the Duke of Athens; Hippolyta is the Amazon queen engaged to Theseus; Egeus is a citizen of Athens; and Oberon and Titania are the king and queen of the fairies. In addition to being part of the vecchi, Egeus is recognizable as the stock Commedia dell’Arte character named Pantalone, who often portrayed a father whose daughter doesn’t want to marry the man he has chosen for her. This is certainly true in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as one of the major plot lines surrounds Theseus’ daughter Hermia, who wants to marry Lysander rather than the man her father wants her to marry.

     The working class craftsmen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream who have decided to perform the story of Pyramus and Thisbe for the Duke’s wedding are referred to as the mechanicals. They consist of Nick Bottom, Peter Quince, Francis Flute, Robin Straveling, Tom Snout, and Snug. These characters are part of what is referred to as the zanni in Commedia dell’Arte.  They provide much of the base humor in the play, from the visual comedy of Bottom’s head being turned into the head of an ass (3.2.102) to the mechanicals’ performance in front of the vecchi at the top of Act V, which is so terrible that it’s laughable. The most memorable of the mechanicals is Nick Bottom, who is self-deluded and thinks he is a talented actor; he is the butt of many of the jokes in the play. Other zanni in the play are the servant fairies: Puck, Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed.

Puck, Oberon’s servant, plays a more integral role in the play than the rest of the fairy zanni in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and may be compared to the Commedia dell’Arte stock character named Arlechinno. He is also one of Shakespeare’s most memorable characters, just as Arlechinno was one of the most memorable Commedia dell’Arte characters. In Act II, Oberon gives Puck a flower and tells him to anoint Demetrius’ eyes with it. The flower is magical and its nectar will cause Demetrius to fall in love with Helena. Unfortunately, Puck mistakes Athenians and anoints Lysander instead of Demetrius and plot complications ensue. Making mistakes that complicate the plot is a characteristic of Arlechinno. Another characteristic of Arlechinno is that he may speak directly to the audience (“Arlechinno”), something that Puck does at the end of the play.

     The innamorati, or young lovers, in Commedia dell’Arte are represented by the characters Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Like the innamorati in Commedia dell’Arte, these characters are more serious than the other classes. Hermia is in love with Lysander instead of the young man her father, Egeus, wishes her to marry. Demetrius, her father’s favorite, wants to marry Hermia, but he has jilted her best friend Helena and she plots to win him back. This is a common plotline in Commedia dell’Arte, where the wishes of fathers regarding the marriages of their children are at odds with the desires of those children.

     Given the popularity of Commedia dell’Arte, it is no wonder that Shakespeare used its elements of interwoven classes and stock characters to create A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a memorable play that continues in popularity to this day.

Works Cited

“Arlechinno” Shane-Arts.com. The Commedia dell’Carte. n.d. Web. 27 March 2014. <http://shane-arts.com/Commedia-Arlechinno.htm>

“Commedia dell’Arte.” UnderstandingItaly.com. Understanding Italy, n.d. Web. 19 March 2014. <http://www.understandingitaly.com/profile-content/commedia.html>

Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Volume 1. Ed. W.G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright. Garden City: Nelson Doubleday, Inc. Hardback, n.d. Print.

“French Theater in the 18^th Century.” McCarter.org The Figaro Plays. n.d. Web 20 March 2014. < http://www.mccarter.org/figaroplays/3-explore/frenchtheater18.html>