Essays on Witches

Introduction

The Salem Witch Trials is a broad name that describes a series of trials and persecutions of people accused of practicing witchcraft during British colonial rule of what is the United States today. These trials occurred between February 1692 and May 1693 in colonial Massachusetts. Prior to 1692, there had been rumors that some villages surrounding Salem. This created a level of suspicion. However in February 1692, the daughter and niece of a priest began to experience unusual situations and feelings in Salem. They complained about coming under some fits and confessed to being bewitched. Thus, three accused women ...

I have been given the task and privilege of directing the film Macbeth, (Macbeth) and the essay will examine many aspects of the play including the main characters, personalities, themes as well as the important incidents in the film and the historical background. I have chosen Lady Macbeth as the main character for discussion. The 2010 film, saw Macbeth as Stalin and the weird sisters or witches were portrayed as nurses and then cooks. It was filmed in an abbey which retained some of the original scenes of Shakespeare’s play. The 2010 film starred Patrick Steward as Macbeth ...

Even if Macbeth and the Tell-Tale Heart, penned by Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe respectively, were written centuries apart, it’s the common theme of guilt expressed so well in the latter that helps us imagine Lady Macbeth’s state of mind (Deighton). In particular, it is the pangs of guilt that she suffers from throughout the play after coercing her husband to commit regicide - to kill King Duncan - who consider Macbeth to be an ally and friend. In the Tell-Tale Heart, the killer suffers from delusions after committing the deed in killing the old man and ...

Introduction

In the 1996 movie entitled, The Craft, it portrays four troubled high school women who holds the power to control their own realities and the people around them by the practice of black magic. Each woman is having some negative issue within their own life, including low self-esteem, trouble fitting in with other classmates, lack of family dynamics and poor relationships. These problems temporarily go away when the teenagers all come together to call the four corners of East, West, South and North to their deity that will grant them unlimited power and control. Although the magic ritual worked ...

Shakespeare’s tragedies are based on the culmination of the recklessness of his protagonists. For example, suspicion was the major cause of Othello’s downfall; Pride was the cause behind King Lear’s tragedy. As said by Aristotle, the protagonist’s weakness is the major reason for the tragedy to happen in the play. Shakespeare’s plays are based on the concept of Aristotle’s tragedy. The tragic hero according to Corrigan (206) is the good man who faces trouble due to his errors or shortcomings. The shortcomings or errors are the real motivators behind the action of the ...

This paper will conduct a literary analysis of Macbeth. The main purpose of the research is to examine the moral and ethical issues present in the play. In particular, the research examines different aspects of characterization, setting, and imagery in order to provide an in-depth understanding of the ethical and moral issues that surround Macbeth’s plot. From the play, it is clear that Shakespeare uses characterization to depict moral and ethical dilemmas in the play. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are both unethical characters in the play since they are engaged in a number of murders and executions that ...

Superstitions in American culture

Superstitions refer to belief in magic and fear of the unknown, which leads individuals to adopt irrational behaviors. The influence of superstitions on individuals has remained strong throughout human history, but this influence has been declining with increased urbanization and education of the masses. The Halloween superstition reflects a fear of some power by human beings, which is beyond their understanding and control. However, some superstitions remain prevalent in American culture and other industrialized societies. During Halloween it is traditionally believed that it is a period that common myths, omens and folklore have more weight for the people who ...

Is power generative or destructive? Can a man have both love and power at the same time? Since we are talking about characteristics, it is difficult to sum up an answer.. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.” (Engebretson) This quote coming from one of the wisest human beings will remind us directly of Macbeth. Macbeth did his best to show the ...

Is power generative or destructive? Can a man have both love and power at the same time? Since, we are talking about characteristics, it’s impossible to generalize an answer. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.” Hearing this quote coming from one of the wisest human being, will remind us directly of Macbeth. Macbeth has done all of his power to ...

Introduction

For centuries they have been tormented, tortured and isolated, considered as outcast of the society. Witches, sorcerers, shamans or magical doctors have been misunderstood and burned at the steak for heresy, because their practices overpassed the human understanding. Through a combination of herbal mixes or psychedelic substances plus a thorough understanding of the human mind, the magical methods of these traditional practices have been analyzed across centuries (Haule 17). While in the modern societies the conventional science, medicine or human psychology are largely preferred, discoveries show that shamanic, witchery, sorcery or magical practices have pragmatic basis and scientific value ( ...

McBeth is a play written by William Shakespeare with the full title being “The tragedy of McBeth”. Its main setting is in Scotland and it tells a story of McBeth, a Scottish general who is informed by three witches, as part of a prophecy, that he will become the King of Scotland. McBeth is amused by the witches’ premonition and ambition soon begins to stir up inside him. He informs his wife on these foretelling and being an ambitious woman, she persuades her husband that committing regicide would be the fastest way to achieving the witches’ prophecy (Shakespeare, 47). ...

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is best characterized by his ambition, which leads him to commit heinous murders and eventually causes him to become insane. In “Macbeth”, one of the greatest tragedies ever written, the protagonist transforms from a valiant nobleman to an insane and violent tyrant, whose downfall comes as a relief by the end of the play. The tragedy is a literary genre which tackles a serious or somber topic, and in which the protagonist has an unhappy fate, usually brought about by a major flaw in his character. In the play, Macbeth first kills Duncan to take ...

Macbeth is a play written by William Shakespeare and The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison. Both Macbeth and The Bluest Eye deal with human nature and its striving to reach the best possible state of existence. The goal of Macbeth and his wife is to gain power at all costs which deprives them of humanity. Pecola also wants to improve her life which is why she wishes to have blue eyes. There is much suffering and fight for power in these texts as well as the age all problem of evil which affects all people. ...

Witchcraft can be defined as the use and application of magical powers typically obtained from sorcery or evil spirits in performing unbelievable things. Or it can as well be defined as the invocation and exercise of alleged powers which are supernatural in nature in controlling events or people with the involvement of magic or sorcery. Therefore, a witch can be described as an individual who performs these supernatural scenes. In most cases, the unavoidable element of witchcraft is the infliction of painful feeling to one party in efforts of satisfying the wants of the other party. These painful inflictions ...

I have recently attended a lecture on women’s rights given by a local female activist. She brainstormed about the issue of lack of women’s rights and why it was so important to recognize it and start working on it. She stated that until the time when women are able to feel comfortable in their workplaces and get paid as much as men do, our society cannot call itself liberal. This paper proves that the problem of female discrimination is a serious flaw on our society as it gets on the way of many women’s career development. ...

Introduction

Sexual behavior and homosexuality are the sensitive issues among other issues in the world of religion. Every society has moral rules that regulate sexual behavior. However, the rules differ from society to society. At times, to its intents and purposes, the rules necessarily and sufficiently need some specific study and comparing for rational precision. At this event, the comparison of the sexual behavior of different societies with the religious beliefs displays some distinctive connection between the social structures and morals. Power argues that the monastic rules served to ensure the proper public performance of monks because it is the ...

“Macbeth” is one of the bloodiest tragedies by Shakespearean and has everything. The essay discusses the character of Lady Macbeth in the movie "Macbeth” which is a good adaptation of the play. In the movie, Lady Macbeth looks stately, elegant and poised. She speaks very softly and in a controlled manner. She is charming and completely devoted to her husband. She is shown to be innocent and victimized when she gets involved in the murder plot. The objectives the chosen character are to make sure Macbeth is king. Her obstacles are that in order to complete her ambition, she ...

The difference between appearance and reality has been a theme in literature for just about as long as people have been putting paper to pen and writing stories. In many of William Shakespeare’s plays, this is one of the more common themes, particularly in the comedies and tragedies. Macbeth and Othello are two Shakespearean tragedies that explore the difference between what central characters think they see and what is real, and the chaos that this difference brings to their lives. In Macbeth, the gap between appearance and reality comes from two sources: the bottomless ambition that Lady Macbeth, ...

Witchcraft has always been a popular topic of many countries’ folklore. People loved to write and read about what they feared, and throughout history, they mainly feared the unknown. Witches and wizards were people that didn’t fit social norms. They might have been lonely, antisocial, or they might not do things that were expected from them (single and childless women, unemployed men, people who didn’t go to church and/or believed in God). Sometimes women who were “too beautiful” were accused of witchcraft as well. Witches were sometimes people (usually women) with a strong intuition, those who could ...

A witch in the European community was regarded as someone who had the power to harm both humans and the animals. In the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, there were many cases of witch hunts. The primary factor that contributed to the large witch hunt was a puzzle to the majority. Many factors contributed to witch hunt, including economic downturns, and the growth of religion among other factors. In the nineteenth century, many historians ignored the issue of the witch hunt, as they believed that it was not an important subject and instead saw it as a beginning of ...

Analysis of the Character of Shakespeare's Macbeth in the Social and Historical Contexts

The play "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare, which is based on the Scottish history, appears to be not so much a work of art as a political response to the era in which it was necessary to develop a Scottish theme, emphasize the historical friendship of England and Scotland, and tell about the popular witches and witchcraft at the new royal court. Undoubtedly, tragedies are the creative heritage of William Shakespeare. They express the power of his brilliant mind and the essence of his era, precisely because the subsequent periods comprehended their conflicts through the prism of the Shakespearean works ...

In our modern, sophisticated and highly secular world, the concept of witchcraft might seem ridiculous and anachronistic. Yet, even today there are many people in the world who believe strongly in the supernatural, including the power of witchcraft to influence the world around them. Despite 19th century mysticism and Romantic period interest in the Druids, Europe has largely abandoned any such traditions. However, belief in witchcraft is still quite common in much of Africa. However, even in Africa witchcraft has changed significantly from what it was in the distant past. The following essay will examine both European and African ...