The Place of Destiny, Fate, Free Will and Free Choice in Macbeth Essay

The Place of Fate in Macbeth Shakespeare was wont to employ the fey force of fate throughout his tragic play Macbeth. Let us examine in this essay what we lowly by the above statement. In Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies, Maynard Mack explains that the witches are associated with fate Except in one phrase (I.3.6) and in the stage directions, the play always refers to the witches as weyard - or weyward - sisters. Both spellings are variations of supernatural, which in Shakespeares time did not mean freakish, only when fateful - having to do with the determination of destinies. Shakespeare had met with such creatures in Holinshed, who regularly refers to the supernatural agents with whom Macbeth has dealings as the three sisters, or the three weird sisters, i.e., the three Fates. (185) L.C. Knights in the essay Macbeth explains the place of fate in the reject of Macbeth One feels, says W.C. Curry, that in proportion as the good in him diminishes, h is conversancy of free choice is determined more and more by im righteous inclination and that he cannot choose the better course. Hence we speak of quite a little or fate, as if it were some external force or moral order, compelling him against his will to certain destruction. Most readers have felt that later the initial crime there is something compulsive in Macbeths murders and at the end, for each his valiant fury, he is certainly not a free agent. He is like a bear tied to a stake, he says but it is not only the besieging army that hems him in he is jail in the world he has made. (102) In Fools of Time Studies in Shakespearian Tragedy, Northrop Frye stresses the connection between the witches and fate The... ...ey, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy. New York Penguin Books, 1991. Coles, Blanche. Shakespeares Four Giants. Rindge, NH Richard R. metalworker Publisher, Inc., 1957. Coursen, H. R. Macbeth a Guide to the Play. Westport, CN Greenwood Press, 1997. Frye, Northrop. Fool s of Time Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy. Toronto, Canada University of Toronto Press, 1967. Knights, L.C. Macbeth. Shakespeare The Tragedies. A Collectiion of searing Essays. Alfred Harbage, ed. Englewwod Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964. Mack, Maynard. Everybodys Shakespeare Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies. Lincoln, NB University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. http//chemicool.com/Shakespeare/macbeth/full.html, no lin. Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Toronto, Canada University of Toronto Press, 1957.