Grade 9 Essay used in the real exam that achieved full marks. Includes introduction, 8 main body paragraphs and a conclusion - adaptable to any question forMacbeth - hits the top level of all Assessment Objectives and perfect to use for remembering Grade 9 points or as an essay in itself to achieve...
Whilst the supernatural can be deemed as largely influential in Macbeth's downfall, the
"weird sisters'" ambiguity ambiguous role in Macbeth’s downfall throughout the play, as well
as their struggle for power in a patriarchal society, suggest Shakespeare may have only
implemented the supernatural in his play to appease King James I who was his patron.
Shakespeare was more interested in the psychology of the characters; the supernatural were
simply a symbol of temptation that Macbeth was consumed by.
Shakespeare introduces the witches in the very first scene of the play which gives them large
structural significance. They chant “Fair is foul and foul is fair”. This paradoxical chiasmus is a
logical inconsistency that introduces the play's strong underlying theme of corruption and
the supernatural. The witches speak in trochaic tetrameter which distinguishes them from
the other characters who typically speak in iambic pentameter, reinforcing their “weird”
actions and control in the play. This would unsettle a Jacobean audience who were largely
scared of the supernatural. King James was especially interested in it - shown by his book
Daemonologie and the witch hunts he organised. The weird sisters continue to use
equivocation, declaring “when the battle’s lost and won”, unsettling the audience with its
ambiguity by flipping the conventional order of “won” first. This alludes to the idea of
Macbeth’s downfall coming first and to his internal conflict between good and evil.
However, Shakespeare could be diminishing the influence of the witches in the events of the
play as they speak in an almost childlike manner due to their short sentences, simple rhymes
and choral speech, as if they were children playing a game. This undermines their credibility
as it shows the audience their game does not have any real power; they only serve as a
mirror for the recognition of each character's true self.
Shakespeare demonstrates how temptation and the supernatural invokes an irreversible
change in character, subverting the audience’s expectations as he implies that a person’s
poor qualities are amplified by the crown and supernatural. Macbeth becomes paranoid, but
the weird sisters simply expose his underlying evil as a killer. In the beginning of the play,
Macbeth is conveyed as the epitome of a loyal and quintessential Scottish soldier when the
sergeant recalls Macbeth’s noble actions as he “carv’d the passage” to the traitor
Macdonwald. Specifically, the emotive verb “carv’d” carries strong connotations of
combative expertise and nobility. Alternatively, it could allude to him carving his name
famously in the beginning of the play and eventually notoriously at the end of the play,
foreshadowing his drastic moral decline. The stark contrast between Macbeth murdering an
enemy of the king (which would be seen as an enemy to God due to the Divine Right of
Kings believed by the contemporary audience) and when he commits regicide - emphasises
that this murder is the ultimate sin and the supernatural could play a role in it.
Macbeth echoes the witches' equivocation in Act 1 Scene 3 "so fair and foul a day I have not
seen". By this point in the play, Macbeth had not yet met the witches which could allude to
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