In addition to the witches, in Shakespeare's
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth calls on spirits, Macbeth seems to hold to
traditional Christian views of the afterlife, and nature reflects the state of human
affairs.
Lady Macbeth's views appear to be much closer to
those of the witches than they are to traditional Christianity. She begs or pleads
(prays?) with the murdering ministers to make her androgynous (as are the witches with
their beards, of course), more like an aggressive man, as she sees
men.
Macbeth clearly thinks in terms of traditional good
and evil, as his soliloquies demonstrate, and worries about the consequences for his
actions in the afterlife. His view of consequences in the afterlife for sins committed
on earth seems to be traditional Christian.
Horses become
cannibalistic, storms rage, etc., as nature mimics the sordid, unnatural state of
affairs in Scotland. Nature is in tune with humanity, and supernaturally reflects the
unnatural behaviors of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
The
supernatural is prevalent in the play. From the eerie opening scene and the bearded
weird sisters and the foul weather to horses eating each other to Macbeth's visions
to most of the play taking place at night, the eerie, supernatural atmosphere covers the
play, literally and figuratively.
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