Meet Macbeth

Our first glimpse of Macbeth is provided through direct characterization, painting him as "brave" and "worthy" due to the gruesome battle in which he slaughtered many. Through indirect characterization we can observe that Macbeth is easily swayed by the promise of glory, through the scene with the witches in which he believes their prophecy without reason. These witches play an important role in the play for they provide much foreshadowing and set the plot. For one, they have already established that Macbeth shall be king therefore we can only imagine the murders that will be committed hereafter. Also they allude to the control of Lady Macbeth over Macbeth and we can already foresee that she will be the one influencing him. Lastly another piece of foreshadowing that seemed very interesting was when they informed Banquo that his sons would be kings, which to me says one of them will end up murdering Macbeth. The exposition is provided by dialogue between characters, by specific names that trigger allusions, and by historical background illustrated through the events. A main theme would be the conflict between ambition and morals, the phrase uttered by the witches in the beginning “fair is foul, and foul is fair” which will undoubtedly follow and haunt Macbeth throughout the entire play, until it leads to his inevitable bloody slaughter (it is Shakespeare).