Plain Style Revision of Open Prompt September 30

1978. Choose an implausible or strikingly unrealistic incident or character in a work of fiction or drama of recognized literary merit. Write an essay that explains how the incident or character is related to the more realistic of plausible elements in the rest of the work. Avoid plot summary.

            There has always been the age old battle over whether humans can control their actions or not, it is present in literature as well as religion.  Shakespeare often uses the theme fate versus free will in his plays.  In Shakespeare’s Macbeth he uses an encounter with the three witches at the beginning of the play to introduce a theme of the play, whether Macbeth has free will to choose to fulfill the prophesy or to stop, or if Macbeth is fated to do so and has no choice.

            Shakespeare uses the opening scene of Macbeth to introduce the witches for his play, and then after meeting Macbeth and foretelling to him that he will be king, they are not seen again in the play.  This encounter with the witches then affects the rest of the play, it creates the conflicts that later occur, the murders Macbeth commits to fulfill this prophesy, like King Duncan, and the others he has carried out for him.  All these things stem from that first encounter with the witches, before this Macbeth had been honorable and good man, the diction used to describe him when he meets the King shows Macbeth was the glorious warrior.  But following the encounter Macbeth begins to plan and plot the downfall of King Duncan, becoming a traitor himself, he descends into his own mind and becomes obsessed.  He cannot fail in his plan to become King.  Macbeth even has his friends killed to reach this position, and their children.

            The reason for all this bloodshed is called into question, is Macbeth responsible for all of this, does he have a choice to kill his friends, the King, and all who stand in his way? When Macbeth met the witches and they told him what he would become, did that mean that Macbeth had to fulfill this prophesy or did he still have free will to choose whether or not to kill his friends and those he was loyal to? Since we live in this day and age when free will is so widely accepted, I think that Macbeth did have a choice in his bloody path to kingship and he could have stopped in his plot and avoided the death he brought on himself.  In the time Shakespeare wrote the play in, however, there was not as much free will and so there could have been more stress on the fate side of this conflict.

            Shakespeare uses the encounter with the witches in the beginning of Macbeth to influence the rest of the play, Macbeth takes his prophesy to heart and struggles to fulfill it, killing friends and acquaintances left and right. The encounter with the witches causes all this bloodshed and creates a theme for the play, does Macbeth have free will or is he fated and he has no choice to fulfill this prophesy and kill those in his way as he does so? Shakespeare, such a master of his craft, used two scenes to affect and create a whole play.