Shakespeare presents Macbeth as being blinded by ambition and fear that people will stand in his way, both seemingly caused by the witches. Throughout the play the witches seem to enjoy sowing seeds of fear into Macbeth’s mind, even from their first interaction in act 1 scene 3 when they reveal Macbeth will be “king hereafter” it sparks the fire of Macbeth that will fuel him throughout the play and grow stronger as the play progresses. Shown in the extract, as even though the crown is upon his head, he cannot stop thinking about the witches' prophecies, especially Banquo’s. Exhibiting fear and even jealousy illustrated when describing his “barren sceptre” and “fruitless crown”. The ‘less’ suffix in the adjective “fruitless” shows Macbeth’s lack of children, and how he realises he has no meaning to being king, as he will become unimportant in the future. With the one thing he was afraid to lose, power; gone. Maybe …show more content…
The concept of the withes supernatural elements causing fear and doubt would have reflected in an audience at the time as due to their extreme Christian views they would perceive witchcraft as a sign of the devil and exhibit fear of the witches. The witches would also appeal to King James I who strongly believed in the presence of witches and even wrote a book about it; daemonologie.
Macbeth and Banquo, once fierce allies are shown to be driven apart by fear, once again incited by the witches, however, even though Banquo was with Macbeth when meeting the witches, he chose not to listen to the witches, despite being predicted “Thou shalt get