Evil in Macbeth

“In Macbeth, Shakespeare presents us with a powerful vision of evil.” Write your response to the above statement. Textual support may include reference to a particular performance of the play you have seen.

William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, explores many different themes including loyalty, betrayal, and ambition but is it the powerful theme of evil and the consequent guilt that have the most devastating effects on the play’s protagonist, Macbeth and his loyal wife. It is this theme above all others that stays with us, the readers long after we have finished reading. This play explored many of the branches in evil, namely human’s propensity to commit evil acts, and supernatural evil. Evil was portrayed through two main characters: Macbeth and his wife. Evil was also portrayed in this tragic play through the use of stylistic techniques like pathetic fallacy and language.

The opening scene introduces the themes of evil and disorder as the three powerful witches plot Macbeth’s downfall, amid a stormy setting. The vision of evil is powerfully presented through the witches. They are seen as personifications of evil, as their actions always involve the cruel misleading or suffering of their victims. It was clear to us that they have great power over events and knowledge of the future, but that they use this supernatural power for evil and not for good, causing chaos and mayhem wherever they go. It is evident that they have no ethical values and their mantra ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ represents their reversal of morals. The cruel acts they commit such as the torture of a man at sea ‘I’ll drain him dry as hay, sleep shall neither night nor day’ or ‘killing swine’ they hold proudly, like trophies and so we conclude that they do this for the pleasure of it. In our opinion anything that can delight in others suffering can only be evil. The most evil act that they perform is the misleading of Macbeth. They lulled him in to a false sense