Reading Journal - Act One

Witches - Rhyming almost constantly, gives an air of incantation. Links in to the supernatural gothic element.  Prophesies.
War setting:

• Uncaring of individuals;
• side of human nature not often seen;
• sense of justice overly strong; 
• massacre - lots of death;
• glorification of murder.

Witches continue:

• Total lack of remorse.  Qualities that make us human removed but in a very human form.  Creepy, supernatural element.
• Alike to the Fates in Greek mythology. Continued about their business deciding the destiny of people without sympathy or regret.  Singular eye could be an element added to a live production of Macbeth.

1.5
Lady Macbeth

• Meglomaniac
• Female equivalent of husband.
• Warrior woman, references allowing Duncan under her "battlements".
• Idea that, had she not been born a woman, she would have made a better fighter even than husband, but because is stuck in a woman's body she is limited to her station.
• Scathing of human emotion. More machine than being?  Scathing even of husband's emotion. Only emotion that passes between them is lust (in Patrick Stewart version)
• Emasculates husband so that she has control.
• "Spirits in thine ear" - could reference either Weird Sisters or her own "powers".
• Symbology - Golden Rounds - Crown? Money?
• Two-faced.
• Turned on by idea of murder?

A thought:  Could war be considered a Gothic element?  War creates hot-headed and murdering men enhances the barbaric element of the human nature.  Strong fearful feeling, masculine.  Blurred lines of reality.  Potential for psychological issues.