Key Quote
“"Fair is foul, and foul is fair"”
The Witches · Act 1, Scene 1
Focus: “foul”
The Witches' opening incantation establishes the play's central paradox: moral boundaries are unstable, and what appears good may be evil. This sets the tone for Macbeth's entire tragic descent.
Technique 1 — CHIASMUS / ANTITHETICAL PARALLELISM
Shakespeare employs chiasmuschiasmus — A rhetorical device where two phrases are reversed in structure — 'fair is foul' mirrors 'foul is fair' — creating a sense of moral inversioninversion — turning upside down. The antitheticalantithetical — Directly opposite or contrasting pairing collapses the distinction between good and evil, suggesting that in this world moral categories are arbitraryarbitrary — based on random choice rather than reason.
The trochaic tetrametertrochaic tetrameter — A metre of four stressed-unstressed beats per line, creating a chanting rhythm — distinct from the iambic pentameter used by human characters — marks the Witches as otherworldly. Their irregular rhythm mirrors the disruption they bring to the natural and moral order.
Key Words
RAD — STAGNATE
The Witches exist outside the moral development of the play — they neither progress nor regress but represent a staticstatic — Lacking movement or change force of chaos. Their stagnation is deliberate: they are catalysts for Macbeth's fall but remain unchanged themselves, functioning as archetypalarchetypal — Representing a universal pattern or model agents of disorder.
Key Words
Technique 2 — PROLEPTIC IRONY
The line functions as prolepticproleptic — Anticipating and representing a future event as if already happening irony: it foreshadows Macbeth's journey from 'fair' (brave warrior) to 'foul' (tyrannical murderer). Shakespeare plants the seed of the entire tragic arc in the play's first scene, creating a sense of inevitabilityinevitability — The quality of being certain to happen; unavoidable that haunts every subsequent decision.
The plural verb — 'Fair IS foul' — presents moral collapse as a statement of fact, not possibility. This declarativedeclarative — Making a statement presented as fact mood strips away human agency, suggesting Macbeth's fate may already be sealed before he even appears on stage.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
JAMES I & WITCHCRAFT
King James I wrote DaemonologieDaemonologie — King James I's 1597 treatise on witchcraft and the supernatural, a treatise on witchcraft, and personally oversaw witch trials. Shakespeare's portrayal of the Witches directly flatters the King's interests while tapping into genuine societal paranoiasocietal paranoia — widespread irrational fear. The opening scene would have provoked real anxiety in a Jacobean audience who believed in demonic forces.
THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING
Jacobean society believed in a divinely ordaineddivinely ordained — Ordered or decreed by God hierarchy — God, King, man, woman, animal. The Witches' inversion of moral categories threatens this entire structure, suggesting that the cosmic order itself can be disrupted. Regicide (killing a king) was not merely murder but an offence against God's design.
Key Words
WOW — DECONSTRUCTING BINARY OPPOSITIONS (Derrida)
Jacques Derrida argued that Western thought relies on binary oppositionsbinary oppositions — paired concepts where one is privileged: good/evil, fair/foul — and that these hierarchies are constructed, not natural. The Witches' incantation performs a deconstructive act: by equating 'fair' with 'foul', they collapse the moral binary that underpins social order. Shakespeare anticipates Derrida by four centuries, suggesting that the categories society depends on — good/evil, loyal/treacherous, natural/supernatural — are inherently unstableunstable — Liable to change or collapse; not firmly established. This philosophical instability is what makes Macbeth's tragedy possible: if 'fair' can become 'foul', then a loyal thane can become a regicidal tyrant.
Key Words