English Lit - Macbeth: Theme of Supernatural

• In Macbeth, the supernatural is a driving force behind all evil and the protagonist's hamartia which leads to the events, finally lead to Macbeth's downfall.
• Shakespeare uses the supernatural to serve as a warning to the audience of what could happen if they acted on dark impulses. As with tragedy, wider forces influence the protagonist but the witches' prophecies push Macbeth into taking action in committing the regicide of King Duncan
• • 'Fair is foul and foul is fair'
  • Paradox - disruption of nature, sets the tone for the tragedy
  • Macbeth is connected to the witches from the offset 'so foul and fair a day i have not seen' - his involvement in the supernatural
  • Shakespeare uses inversion to allow this line to linger in the minds of the audience and show that the characters are significant
  • Witches speak in trochaic tetrameter - separates the supernatural 
• • 'Come you spirits who tend on mortal thought....unsex me here'
  • Lady Macbeth and Macbeth try to command and use the supernatural to achieve their ambitions.
  • This imperative shows lady macbeth gaining control however the supernatural cannot be commanded as their role is to influence man
  • She wants them to remove all gender so that she can feel no guilt however this is clearly ineffective as her guilt consumes her showing that u cant command the supernatural
• • 'Is this a dagger which i see before me'
  • Macbeth is so consumed by the witches prophecies that he is using the supernatural to drive him towards the death of king duncan.
  • The audience would have seen this as the supernatural being the root of all evil as regicide would've been the worst possible sin.
  • The king was fascinated by demonology
  • Backed up by him seeing Banquo's ghost - the supernatural is embedded within him
• • 'Sleep no more. Macbeth hath murdered sleep"
  • Sleep = innocence
  • Natural order has been disrupted
  • Similar to Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking
• ‘stay you imperfect speakers, tell me more’
• ‘come you spirits’
• ‘beware macduff!’
• ‘don’t shake thy gory locks at me’
• ‘or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner’

  Banquo after the prophecies

  Metaphorical
• ‘instruments of darkness’
• ‘if ill why hath it given me earnest of success commencing in a truth?’

  Macbeth after he became Thane of Cawdor but Banquo is weary of the prophecies due to beliefs on supernatural