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Macbeth


            The whole play is about the battle of good versus evil; at the opening of the play Macbeth is fighting for good, for gracious Duncan against rebels, during the play he is battling his own evil ambition and at the close he is fighting for evil, for himself, against rebels. This good versus evil, heaven versus hell theme gives the play a simple shape or symmetry. The actual embodiments of evil in this play are the witches. They said that: "Fair is foul and foul is fair" and in parallel, so did Macbeth. This showed to your Jacobean audience that the witches were evil and so was Macbeth, as they were great believers in an orderly, un-chaotic society. The disorder also extended to the minds of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. They both went steadily insane. Macbeth saw and heard things: "Is this a dagger I see before me?" The conflict played out in the Macbeth's diseased brains was a microcosm of the conflict in Macbeth's diseased nation. Because of the religious society you lived in, good always had to overcome evil.
             Another way you showed good and evil was to display nature's reaction to evil using pathetic fallacy. Nature does 'unnatural' things because of this very unnatural murder. The hierarchy of society enters a state of disorder. There was an earthquake. "The earth was feverous and did shake". An owl killed a falcon and horses started to eat each other. Day also turned to darkness, your emphasise this by personifying the 'dark night'. "By th'clock 'tis day and yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp". Darkness suggests evil and the evil act of killing King Duncan is committed at night. The daylight, however, does not regain its rightful place during the say to show that something evil and unnatural occurred the night before. Through this inversion of nature the world is turned upside down. I can see that you were a truly prophetic playwright Mr. Shakespeare, as you wrote 'Macbeth' in 1605 and as the result of another murder of a King, King Charles I in 1648, a book was written titled 'The World Turned Upside Down.


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