so I just finished Macbeth....

[dumbzebra]

I just finnished Macbeth, and overall I must say I really enjoyed it, but there is one mayor detail I disliked:
One of the most interesting things for me was, that the witches didn´t have to be magic. An intelligent person who was out to lead Macbeth to the dark path would have been able to guess that Macbeth would become "Thane of Cawdor". I thought it was a nice story about how ambitous people could be abused solely by words.
But then in the second part you find out that those witches really are magic, and can predict the future. So pracitcally everything Macbethd does can be attributed to the evilness of the witches, not to macbeth´s weakness of chracter. They just fool him, "Whoops, those things with the trees was not a metaphor for time" and "Haha, he was born by a cesarean section, so that doesn´t count as "born by a mother"". So it turned out to be just a fairy tale about bad, bad witches, and nothing meaningful.
So what do you think?

[PAstrychef]

I think you've kind of missed the point. Macbeth is told he will be elevated, and his Lady says, "why not go for the whole thing?" Why settle for being Thane when you can be king? Macbeth allows his wife's ambition to rule him, killing Duncan, but he's overcome by the magnitude of this act and Lady M has to set up the cover-up. At this point Macbeth has to do any thing he can to hold on to the throne, or else he's just a common murderer. So he gets sucked into killing and killing while his wife goes mad. A tale of overweening ambition, getting beyond your proper place in the hierarchy going badly wrong and the way that bad deeds will lead to worse.
As for the witches, prophecy is usually in metaphor.
And remember, Good Will was writing hack and slash theatre for public consumption, it only became great literature over time.

[dumbzebra]

I completely agree with, but I also saw the first apart as a metaphor on how to be influenced. Macbeth was made to kill duncan because he was weak in character. When you find out that the witches can do magic and fool Macbeth it turned from "Watch out what other people can make you do" to "Dont talk to Witches, kids!"

[Sir_Elderberry]

I strongly disagree. There's no sign that the witches cast any sort of spell on Macbeth--his descent into, er, the plot happens entirely due to him and Lady M. Sure, the witches make a prediction, but their prediction is only "one day, you'll be king"--Lady Macbeth (well, it crosses his mind first iirc) is the one who goes from "one day" to "right damn now." Now, your contention is that Macbeth's final fall occurs due to prophecies, and that this fantastic means of downfall makes his overall failure less applicable to human experience. But really, the point wasn't that he was given a tricky view of the future. The point was that he fully believed that he had no reason to fear. He thought he was invincible. Sure, he thought that because someone lied to him, but really he fell into the trap that lots of people in power do--arrogance.

[Czhorat]

I agree with Sir Elderberry, and will add that the tragedy of Oedipus, to pick an example from earlier in the canon of Western literature, is no less a tragedy for the prophesies really being supernatural in origin.The supernatural element provides a framework for us to see the characters' flaws, most notably hubris.

[jano]

Have you read the short story 'Macbeth Murder Mystery' by Thurber? It gives a different view on the play.
Found it online: http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/anthr ... hurber.htm

[Zarj]

Regardless of whether the witches are magical or not, the point was that Macbeth was weak in character and easily influenced. Whether it was magic witches, or his wife, or flying purple unicorns, Macbeth wouldn't stand up for what he knew was right and instead allowed himself to give in to temptations.

[Adacore]

You also have to consider the audience. The play was written in the time of, and in part for, King James I of England (King James VI of Scotland) - he had a strong belief in witches and believed that witches had once tried to sink a ship he was on. If one of your principal benefactors believes witches and spells are real, it's probably a bad idea to imply that they are not in your plays.