For me, in Shakespeare's Macbeth foreshadowing is labeled as fate and fate plays a large role. Not only do the “witches” use it to wreak havoc among the nobility in Scotland at the time, but many characters throughout the play try to change their individual fate. Macbeth does it, and so does Lady Macbeth. Then later in the play, even Malcolm, Macduff, and the other revolutionaries try to alter fate. Throughout the play of Macbeth, Shakespeare chooses to use animals to portray foreshadowing, to develop character and to get a wide variety of emotions from the audience. To the “witches”, fate is not something to be too concerned with. However, their overlord, Hecate,does thinkss that it was important enough to yell at the “witches” for abusing their power to see the “fate future”. To the “witches” , fate, and for that matter it seems, time, is merely as water and bread are to Macbeth they exist and can be altered. This view of fate is not as ambivalent as the other view, but is more a view along the lines of Thomas Aquinas or Kurt Vonnegut. …show more content…
One is either subject to the limitations of time or one is not. For instance, God is outside the normal limitations of time and is therefore immortal. In Macbeth, it seems, the witches are a mixture of those in time and those not in time. So what im saying is that they can travel in and out of time at their personal will. This ability allows them to both see the future and to change what will happen. This of course proves to be kind of like a paradox because they are able to see the future, but are able to dictate it as well. This confuses me but Shakespeare adds alot of these mind-twisting paradoxes that allude and cloud the