[].
Third Apparition:.
[] Macbeth shall never vanquished be until.
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill.
Shall come against thee. [Ellipses mine] (Macbeth, VI, i, 81-107].
This knowledge boasts his ego and causes him to think he is essentially untouchable. With their suspicions rising, Malcolm and Macduff work together to plot against Macbeth forcing his down fall. Meanwhile, Macbeth's mistress – Lady Macbeth has fallen mentally ill and shortly before the confrontation between Macduff and Macbeth, she commits suicide. Macbeth is later defeated, his head lopped off and showcased around Dunsinane while Malcolm is declared King of Scotland.
In this play, William Shakespeare's incorporation of witchcraft into the plot was a way of reflecting upon the era's beliefs on evil; pleasing King James I and his obsession with demonic evils and what the witches really symbolized throughout the plot; how they affected many characters. The era to which this play was written, had very strong beliefs about demonic happenings involving witches and evil-doing. It was very common in Elizabethan and Jacobean times for many people to be declared witches. The cause for these convictions was the effect of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies (Linder, unknown). It was said that 19 women and men were allegedly convicted of witchcraft and carted away to a village called Gallows Hill to be hanged – also known as the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1962. This is one of the many customs citizens in that time period had to go through. Essentially, it was hard not knowing whether or not you were going to wake up one day, walk out your front door, be declared a witch and be thrown into jail for many years without a trial.
King James the first had a very important role in the way this era portrayed witchcraft. His beliefs were based upon the long history of Christian paranoia of witchcraft by the Roman Catholic and Protestants.
