The function and role of the witches in Macbeth Essay Example

The function and role of the witches in Macbeth Paper In the play of Macbeth the witches are regarded as immoral and unnatural in their behaviour. They play a huge part in Macbeths planning of becoming king. At the beginning of the play they are planning to meet Macbeth, When shall we three meet again, In thunder lightning, or in rain. Disturbances in nature are represented by line of thunder and lightning, it is supposed to give the effect of evil this idea of evil continues throughout the play. Banquo believes that the witches are people who are not inhabitants of the world and although they are women it is hard to tell because of their manly beards. The witches prophecise that Macbeth will become the King of Scotland and know that he is the Thane of Cawdor before he does. At first Macbeth dismisses the idea of being king but then rethinks it. On behalf of both himself and Macbeth Banquo says, Or have we eaten on the insane root, That tskes the reason prisoner? . Insane root was though to cause madness and Banquos very first reaction is that they have both gone mad. Macbeth also describes them as having the power to melt from a solid state when they vanish from his sight; he is obviously amazed by this. We will write a custom essay sample on The function and role of the witches in Macbeth specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The function and role of the witches in Macbeth specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The function and role of the witches in Macbeth specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Afterwards Macbeth receives a message from Ross and Angus telling him he is to become the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth together with Banquo realise that two out of three prophecies the witches make are true, but Macbeth decides it is a coincidence. However, when Macbeth is aside he rethinks about the prophecies made by the witches and wanders if what they said is for good or bad because he thinks that if they have told him good prophecies then they cannot be evil: this is because it was commonly thought that truth cannot be told by the evil. However, he cannot understand why there is a bad feeling in his heart about it and so he is very confused by this. He tries to decline this idea and decides that he will soon become king, we see this when he says, If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir. This shows that he decides to leave it just to chance. Macbeth builds up an argument in his head to help him decide what to do using imagery, as he has strong opinions of right and wrong. He uses the imagery of light and dark for good and evil. This means that he asks for light not to see his dark and deep desires. He wants murder, what the eye fears to happen but does not want the stars, God, to see what he is planning to do. This shows that Macbeth is willing to commit any evil in order to become king, what he wants so badly. At this point the witches have been a catalyst for the evil in Macbeth because this is partly due to the prophecies as they did not say anything about killing the king but only make Macbeth stir up the thoughts in his head. When the witches talk, they talk as if they have one mind. Often they talk in riddles, shown in the quotation, Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. Not so happy, yet much happier. It gives an indication of their uniqueness because the two parts of each of the sentences contradict one another, which is unusual. When one or all of the witches have a speech of more than three lines they speak with couplets sometimes every alternate line, Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. This quotation is located in the first scene of the play. It has no initial definite meaning as it can be interpreted in a number of ways. This witches chorus can be said to be a prophecy where ideas and especially characters are not what they appear to be and describes how things on the play will change. It also signifies the witches reversal of values and their view of good and evil. The witches give no direct indication of whether their intent is good or bad. But it is clear that their intentions are there to disrupt the balance of good and evil. There is no motive to their behaviour except in the case of revenge concerning the sailor and his wife. The only possible motive is that causing trouble is what they are meant to do because they are witches. The evil which they manage to unearth from Macbeth spreads resulting in murder, betrayal and above all the loss of humanity of two people who were once loyal to king and queen. The witches have many functional roles in the pattern of the play. They manage to convert the soul of a good but potentially flawed man and it demonstrates their power. They do this not with force but with the playing of the mind by offering it something, which is highly beneficial yet attainable, the kingship. The witches may also be moral devices who are a test for the main character of the play to see how loyal he is. Because Macbeth does not realise their intent he is not blinded by the fact that they are wicked so the decision of killing Duncan is entirely his own choice. The witches act only as catalysts to the evil already present in him which had not yet emerged and which might not have if it wasnt for their interference. Maybe Shakespeares purpose for the witches was to represent that no matter how good someone seems to be there will also be a little evil in each one of us. No matter how much influence the witches had on Macbeths notions of becoming king it was enough to cause anarchy in Scotland and the deaths of innocent people. When Banquos ghost returns to haunt Macbeth at the banquet, we are able to see the effect the prophecies have had on him. He has a fit of madness and is outraged because he wonders why Banquos ghost has appeared to haunt him. He tells himself that before, when a person had been killed, they would die and that would be the end of it but now it is no longer the case, The times had been, That when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end; In Macbeths fit, he nearly manages to reveal the truth about Banquos death but Lady Macbeth strains to hold the situation together and stops him from saying anything even though she doesnt know about Banquo. She questions his manhood, which is a similar argument to the one, which she used to persuade him to kill Duncan, Are you a man? but this time it does not succeed. Macbeth becomes so insecure that he has a spy in Macduffs house because he believes that he is an enemy. Macbeth decides with no pressure from Lady Macbeth to visit the witches. He wants to know what is going to happen in the future, as he is uncertain. He realizes that they are the worst means to discover what the future holds in store for him yet he is determined. He is almost endeavouring to commit evil. His visit to the witches demonstrates his obsession in that he believes he has enemies everywhere and has evidently placed himself under more suspicion at the banquet. He has reached a point where he is willing to do anything to satisfy himself. The deaths of Duncan and Banquo have left him in a highly dangerous, unstable physical and mental state. Nevertheless, Macbeth in his own mind believes he has everything under control. The scene in which Macbeth goes to the witches of his own accord is an important one because it sets the mood for his approach to the rest of the play. It opens with the witches cooking animal body parts in a couldron. This type of behavior is stereotypical of witches and represents how abnormal they are, Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adders fork, and blind-worms sting, When Macbeth approaches, they indicate his approach, By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Unlike on the moor after the battle, Macbeth finds the witches instead of them coming to him. We are able to see how obsessed he his to know his future when he lists destructive events that he wants to happen and that he does not care about them if they do because he just wants to know what will happen to him, Even till destruction sicken- answer me, To what I ask you. The witches agree to answer all his questions and call upon apparitions. The first apparition is an armed head. It says, beware Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife, and confirms what Macbeth thinks because he already fears him. The second apparition is a bloody child. The image represents the Caesarian birth of Macduff because Caesarian is not considered to be, woman born. He is told that he cannot be hurt by anyone born from a woman so he believes he is secure. With this in mind he decides to make sure Macduff does not irritate him any more by planning to kill him and his family. The third apparition is a crowned child, with a tree in his hand. The child crowned is the child of Duncan, Malcolm explains things that are yet to come but Macbeth does not realise this. The apparition tells Macbeth that he will only die if Great Birnam Wood moves to Dunsinane Hill. The tree in the babys hand symbolises this. Macbeth is clearly pleased with the prophecies as they bode well for him. Still wanting to discover more he asks about Banquo and his descendants. The witches refuse to say anymore but he persists and says, I will be satisfied: deny me this, And an eternal curse fall on you! They finally agree to show him even though it may grieve him. A show of eight kings, the last with a glass in his hand with Banquo following appear. The kings resemble Banquo in spirit and appearance. The images of the kings being Banquos descendants are confirmed when he smiles and points to them. Macbeth is amazed by the sudden turn of events and questions the witches about its reliability. They say that the apparitions tell the truth and then they begin to dance in an attempt to cheer him up. They realise the trouble which they have caused by the display of the apparitions. By resisting Macbeths wishes for the telling of the future up to a certain point, Macbeth becomes even more desperate and compulsive. When they dance at the end it can be said that it is not for Macbeths sake but for their own as they are happy with the vast mischief that they have caused. Because of their attempt to tip the balance between good and evil through the medium Macbeth, he seals his fate when he kills Macduffs wife and son. By killing his family, Macduff looks for revenge of Macbeth. This scene demonstrates how low Macbeth has sunk to by ordering the death of an innocent child and mother. The witches role in the previous scene has ultimately forced him into committing this wicked crime. Macbeths behaviour aroused suspicion especially in Macduff causing him to go to Malcolm for help in the form of troops. Malcolm initially is suspicious of Macduff as he could be a spy but learns to trust him when he sees how troubled Macduff is when he pretends that he will be a greater dictator than Macbeth as he has more vices. When Macduff discovers his family and servants had been slain he swears an oath to take full revenge and he is now motivated to killing Macbeth. In Act 1 Scene 5 Lady Macbeth calls on the powers of darkness in order to, unsex her but now she continually has light by her side as she is frightened by her guilty conscience. By killing Duncan, she is now morally sane not morally bad. Earlier, she would sacrifice anything for the kingship but now she realises whilst sleeping that the murder was not worth all the effort. The fact that it is happening in her sleep is an important theme throughout the play. This is because sleep was taken from the sailor and Macbeth had murdered sleep because he had upset the balance of nature. When Lady Macbeth says, Yet who would have thought the old man to have Had so much blood in him. Macbeth said when he killed Duncan that all the blood will not even be washed by the sea yet Lady Macbeth said that only a little water was needed but now she says that all the perfumes of Arabia will not rid the smell from her hands, All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. We see that she is morally sane but is mentally insane. Macbeth does not realise what the witches have done to him. Although there is an English army of ten thousand soldiers approaching he comfor ts himself by thinking of the prophecies. He knows he can never be defeated until the forest moves and he believes that he is secure. He tells himself that he is not frightened but when his servant enters the room he shouts and curses him suggesting insecurity. He perceives the fact that he is decaying in his mind and his heart, where he says, I have livd long enough: my way of life Is falln into the sere, the yellow leaf; At this point he is in despair unlike before where he was defiant. He calls upon Seyton his servant which is a clear hint for Satan. He asks the doctor how is wife is but is actually referring to himself as he is sick himself. When Macbeth hears of his wifes death he cannot react. He feels life has no meaning and that it carries on. He says that it signifies nothing and if he lives it will be a long time until he dies. Macbeth is now feeling sorry for himself. He hears from a messenger that Birnam Wood is moving. He tells the messenger if he is lying he will be hung from a tree but if he is telling the truth then he can do the same to him. Macbeth gives a last attempt at bravery by saying that he will die fighting. Even until the end Macbeth is selfish in his ways, as he does not want to pay for his crimes. Although Macbeth knows he is nearing the end he still demonstrates that he is courageous and a fighting force by killing Young Siwar. He is testing the witches prophecy about not being killed by a man born of woman. Macduff enters entirely motivated by revenge. He will only use his sword against Macbeth. Macbeth does not want to kill Macduff as he has already killed part of his family. When he learns that Macduff was born differently through Caesarian not directly out of the womb he no longer desires to fight but due to his pride he is going to die trying. When Macduff exits with Macbeths head he says that everything is back in order. Malcolm knows that nothing will be the same since Macbeth. The witches although bad in nature help the greater good to succeed. Much of the play deals with the struggle between light and darkness. Macbeth begins as a good character but because of their involvement he begins to symbolize darkness. The light in the first two acts is King Duncan, but when he died the struggle went in favour of darkness. Macbeth seems to have control throughout most of the play until his conscience came back to haunt him. Macduff is the hero of the play but not a character who stands out as a hero. He symbolises the light, which will defeat darkness that is Macbeth.

Learn How to Write a Good Essay

Learn How to Write a Good EssayIf you are planning to get an education in business, then you will certainly need a study plan sample essay. Writing a successful essay is an art and there are many things that you have to consider. Here are some tips and ideas to get you started with a really good and well-written research paper.First, you need to set up your target audience. There are a lot of people out there who are very knowledgeable about business. You need to figure out who they are and their specific needs. Then you need to choose what type of research paper you want to write. For example, if you need to write an essay about 'Why I Love Business,' you will definitely need to write this type of research paper.Next, you need to know what your topic is going to be. You can write a research paper about why you love business. Or, you can write an essay on the benefits of a career in business.Finally, you need to focus on the specific information and the parts of the research paper th at will interest the reader. When you know what the purpose of the essay is, it will be easier for you to write and also you will know how to use the proper essay formatting.If you are looking for ways to get an education in business, then you have to go to the top universities in the country and try to get accepted. The most popular business schools in the United States offer programs to students who want to specialize in business. And you might get an interview in one of these schools.Then, you have to plan your budget. This is the first part that you will have to consider. In other words, you have to know what the money that you have available for this purpose. It could be in your salary or it could be in your scholarship.In the end, you have to know how much time and energy you have to spend writing the essay. Keep in mind that you have to make sure that you are able to finish the project on time and also in a timely manner.

Mr1 essays

Mr1 essays For Crane, he uses Maggie: A Girl of the Streets to tell a story of a girl, born into a life of misery, who has no way of escaping it. Thus, the story strikes an emotional chord in the readers hearts and the audience empathizes with Maggies conditions. Crane believes in the concept of "lifting the veil" and envisions a society that can look past physical differences. He wants the reader to understand the trails that Maggie endured and that the forces that hindered her were not her fault. She is born a "victim" of society. The dialect that Crane uses explicitly distances the audience from Maggie. Crane purposely wants his audience to understand her hardships and not to judge her actions. The dialect found inside the story separates the reader from the characters, yet still allows us to acknowledge Maggie and "makes room in Heaven for all sorts of souls (notably an occasional street girl) who are confidently expected to be there by many excellent people." Thus, by "lifting the veil," C rane allows his readers to see Maggies struggles, however, also allowing us to understand when Maggie commits suicide. The opposing forces around her are too large for her to overcome. Stephen's father, Jonathan Crane, was a Methodist minister who died in 1880, leaving Stephen, the youngest of 14 children, to be reared by his devout, strong-minded mother. After attending preparatory school at the Claverack College (1888-90), Crane spent less than two years at college and then went to New York City to live in a medical students' boardinghouse while freelancing his way to a literary career. While alternating bohemian student life and explorations of the Bowery slums with visits to genteel relatives in the country near Port Jervis, N.Y., Crane wrote his first book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), a sympathetic study of an innocent and abused slum girl's descent into prostitution and her eventual suicide. ...

10 Types of Transitions

10 Types of Transitions 10 Types of Transitions 10 Types of Transitions By Mark Nichol Writing is simply a matter of expressing ideas, but as we all know, it’s not so simple after all. One challenge is to coherently connect those ideas. This post lists ten categories of words and phrases one can employ to signal a transition, with several examples for each type. These words and phrases can be used within a sentence as well as at the beginning. Note, too, that many can apply to more than one category. (These groupings are arbitrary, created for the sake of presentation; transitional terms can be organized in various ways.) 1. Addition â€Å"Also, I have to stop at the store on the way home.† â€Å"Besides, it would give me great satisfaction to help you.† â€Å"First, I’d like to thank you for inviting me to speak tonight.† 2. Comparison â€Å"In the same way, the author foreshadows a conflict between two minor characters.† â€Å"Likewise, the sequel was very successful.† â€Å"Similarly, we observed no differences in response rate.† 3. Concession â€Å"Granted, you did not ask ahead of time.† â€Å"Naturally, the final decision is up to her.† â€Å"Of course, he will want to examine the documents himself.† 4. Contrast â€Å"At the same time, what she said has some truth to it.† â€Å"However, I don’t see what that has to do with anything.† â€Å"Otherwise, how can they expect us to comply?† 5. Consequence â€Å"Accordingly, I have consulted with him for a second opinion.† â€Å"As a result, I’m not sure what to do.† â€Å"For this reason, we have decided to halt the project.† 6. Emphasis â€Å"Above all, we must exercise discretion.† â€Å"Certainly, he’ll find out for himself in time.† â€Å"In fact, they’re on their way right now.† 7. Example â€Å"For example, he could have asked for advice first.† â€Å"In particular, I draw your attention to the stain on the carpet.† â€Å"Namely, consider the consequences of your decision.† 8. Sequence â€Å"Earlier, you had mentioned a report.† â€Å"Eventually, we’ll see some improvement.† â€Å"Meanwhile, I’ve been waiting for you.† 9. Space â€Å"Below, you’ll find instructions for assembling the shelf.† â€Å"In the distance, he could see the approaching figure.† Off to one side, a package wrapped in plain paper caught her attention. 10. Summary â€Å"In conclusion, I see no reason to delay any longer.† â€Å"In other words, they’re incompetent.† â€Å"Therefore, your decision leaves me no choice.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Mostly Small But Expressive InterjectionsThe Letter "Z" Will Be Removed from the English AlphabetQuiet or Quite?

What parts of Catholicism did Martin Luther keep after the Reformation Essay

What parts of Catholicism did Martin Luther keep after the Reformation - Essay Example The Catholics and those who protested mutually demanded reforms; however, the manner that they struggled for the reforms differed in a great manner. The reformation commenced at the end of October in the year 1517, when Martin Luther who was a German monk inadvertently ignited an uprising (McGrath 11). With the aid of the Ignatius, Metto and associates of the Trent Council, the Catholic Church established a rather flourishing response. Nevertheless, the splitting up of the entire Catholic Church would be the definitive hardship that the original Catholics had to tolerate because of this development of novel ideas. The scuffle to dominate populace’s values and belief’s would generate a civilization of religious pluralism, as it is currently recognized (Ferguson 57). The protestant way was centered at diminishing the Catholic religion economically, opinionated and publicly, while pressure from those protesting made the Catholics into frequent fights to boost their own acc usations and develop their corrupt nature. Faith and trust are the means of grace and god himself is the Supreme Being who awards this to human beings. The Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church have similarities that are the basis of both religions. The conventional Catholic Church was selling lenience for the aim of getting money, corrupt funds that were employed to perform endeavors that interested them (Baker, Robert and John 199). For instance, they sold Jubilee lenience just next to the Witten burg Castle with the aim of generating money for Saint Peter’s situated in Rome. Martin Luther became perplexed and angry at the Church’s activity of selling the indulgences. Thus, he retorted to his individual loathing of this observation by posting a directory of complaints opposing the Catholic Church. The list of complaints was termed as The Ninety-Five Theses (Luther and Stephen 47). Therefore, he began a religious upheaval that was later recognized as the

A Change Management Issue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

A Change Management Issue - Essay Example Unfortunately, not always is diversity easy to implement, nor is it always effective, productive, and relevant. With some organizations having spent years in the market, diversity is something new and even unusual. Such organizations spent years to develop and establish their business traditions – the traditions they believe have led them to their current position and the ones they are not always willing to alter. However, the conditions of doing business change continuously, and the postmodern business reality imposes new diversity demands on organizations and businessmen. For many of them, to become more diverse means to produce a profound shift in organizational mentality, consciousness, and culture. Yet, once implemented, diversity has a potential to move the organization further to its performance and organizational highs. As long as I can remember myself working for that organization, our staff had been mostly comprised of white males working for the financial department and dealing with the most controversial issues in the field of organizational finance. I must say that the organization had spent years in the market and had been able to achieve considerable success and organizational stability. Its name was well recognized by customers and competitors, whereas its financial staff was believed to be at the core of the organization’s continuous success.... All three displayed remarkable performance results but they seemed to experience serious difficulties in their striving to adjust to the new conditions of work. Hostility was equally obvious and veiled: the existing staff members could not accept the idea of a new, diverse workplace and did not realize the potential benefits diversity could give them and their organization, in general. About the organization: In detail My current position is that of Finance Manager in a Veterinary College. The main teaching campus is located in Hertfordshire, and there is also a campus in central London. The college runs three teaching hospitals, with one of them being a drop in a veterinary hospital in London and the other one working as a state of art equine centre in Hertfordshire. My professional obligations require that I constantly interact and cooperate with the rest of the staff, teachers and students, as well as animal owners and veterinary practitioners. The range of issues, with which we c onstantly deal, includes cash flow and pricing, buildings insurance and animal insurance, complaints and staff accounts. The recent financial crisis became a serious test to the stability and financial operations in the Veterinary College. The college aims at providing superior educational and medical services to students and animal owners. Cultural issues and diversity have been among the most serious organizational problems so far. This is one of the reasons why diversity had to become one of the primary objects of change in the Veterinary College. The feasibility and scope of change According to Open University (2010), change may seem desirable but is not always beneficial. Whether new cultures and attitudes toward

Applying Social Network Analysis to the Information in CVS Repositories :: essays research papers

Applying Social Network Analysis to the Information in CVS Repositories Abstract The huge quantities of data available in the CVS repositories of large, long-lived libre (free, open source) software projects, and the many interrelationships among those data offer opportunities for extracting large amounts of valuable information about their structure, evolution and internal processes. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of that information renders it almost unusable without applying methodologies which highlight the relevant information for a given aspect of the project. In this paper, we propose the use of a well known set of methodologies (social network analysis) for characterizing libre software projects, their evolution over time and their internal structure. In addition, we show how we have applied such methodologies to real cases, and extract some preliminary conclusions from that experience. Keywords: source code repositories, visualization techniques, complex networks, libre software engineering 1 Introduction The study and characterization of complex systems is an active research area, with many interesting open problems. Special attention has been paid recently to techniques based on network analysis, thanks to their power to capture some important characteristics and relationships. Network characterization is widely used in many scientific and technological disciplines, ranging from neurobiology [14] to computer networks [1] [3] or linguistics [9] (to mention just some examples). In this paper we apply this kind of analysis to software projects, using as a base the data available in their source code versioning repository (usually CVS). Fortunately, most large (both in code size and number of developers) libre (free, open source) software projects maintain such repositories, and grant public access to them. The information in the CVS repositories of libre software projects has been gathered and analyzed using several methodologies [12] [5], but still many other approaches are possible. Among them, we explore here how to apply some techniques already common in the traditional (social) network analysis. The proposed approach is based on considering either modules (usually CVS directories) or developers (commiters to the CVS) as vertices, and the number of common commits as the weight of the link between any two vertices (see section 3 for a more detailed definition). This way, we end up with a weighted graph which captures some relationships between developers or modules, in which characteristics as information flow or communities can be studied. There have been some other works analyzing social networks in the libre software world. [7] hypothesizes that the organization of libre software projects can be modeled as self-organizing social networks and shows that this seems to be true at least when studying SourceForge projects. [6] proposes also a sort of network analysis for libre software projects, but considering source dependencies between modules. Our approach explores how to apply those network analysis techniques in a more comprehensive and