Examine the play "Macbeth" and consider the question - "was Macbeth responsible for his own downfall?" Discuss this, taking in account other characters, plus the social and historical background.
The play Macbeth was written in the beginning of the 1600's. This was a time of religion and great beliefs in things that we today would feel was stupid and irresponsible. A main topic that people in the 1600's were fearful and afraid of were witches and anything that they felt was associated with witches, such as lightning & thunder.
When the play came out originally and was first viewed, audiences were afraid of all the witchcraft in the play. Some even believed that they were being affected by the scenes of witchcraft that they were seeing! James 1 was a great influence on this play because Shakespeare wrote it especially for him. Shakespeare knew James 1 interest in witchcraft and so involved this into Macbeth.
In the play, the first time we meet Macbeth is when he is approached by the witches. The witches tell Macbeth of future happenings, and cloud his thoughts and confuse him. The witches speak in rhyme and rhthm and riddles - "foul is fair and fair is foul". This basically tells us that all the nice people Macbeth is associated with are trouble, and vice versa. Another statement made by the withes is - "All hail Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter." This statement confuses Macbeth as he, without his knowledge has been crowned Thane of Cawdor. The witches tell Macbeth this, they then tell him of his possible kingship. .
To the audience watching the play, this would have been a scary part of the play. Shakespeare would usually lighten up his audience before he threw a dramatic twist which would disturb most audience members. A good example of this is the Porter scene in which the guard is talking of quite rude matters to Macduff and the other guards - "It provokes the desire, but takes away the performance".