The Sinister Side of MacbethWhen the audience experiences William Shakespeare's Macbeth, they are subjected to a great and heavy dose of evil in the form of intent and actions on the part of the witches, by Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. LC Knights in the essay "Macbeth" specifies the particular kind of evil present in the work:Macbeth defines a particular kind of evil: the evil that results from the lust for power. The definition, as in all tragedies, is in strictly poetic and dramatic terms. It is certainly not an abstract formulation, but rather consists in drawing the necessary consequences and implications of that concupiscence both in the external and in the spiritual world. Its meaning, therefore, is revealed in the expansion and unfolding of what lies in the initial evil, in terms of direct human experience. (93)In "Macbeth as an Imitation of Action" Francis Fergusson describes the evil course of action within the play:At this point there is the brief interlude with the Doctor. The king's illness, his cure and the graces that burden the English throne are briefly described. [. . .] It marks the turning point and introduces the notion of an appeal by faith to Divine Grace that will reverse the evil course of action when Malcolm and Macduff learn to overcome reason in that way, instead of responding to the witches' requests. supernatural solicitations as Macbeth did. (110) Clark and Wright in their Introduction to the Complete Works of William Shakespeare interpret the main theme of the play as an entanglement with evil: While in Hamlet and other Shakespeare plays we have the sense that Shakespeare refined and meditated on his thoughts, Macbeth seems as if it had been shot and imagined from cover to cover with speed and power, and a subtlety of workmanship that has become instructive. The theme of the play is the gradual ruin, through surrender to evil within and evil without, of a man who, though from the first tainted by vile and ambitious thoughts, yet possessed elements in his nature of possible honor and loyalty. (792)The Tragedy of Macbeth opens in a deserted place with thunder and lightning and three witches anticipating their meeting with Macbeth, "There to meet Macbeth." They all say together the mysterious and contradictory "Beautiful is ugly, and ugly is right"..