Influence
Come and Go, a short play written in 1965 by Samuel Beckett, recalls the Three Witches of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It features only three characters, all women, named Flo, Vi, and Ru. The opening line: “When did we three last meet?” recalls the “When shall we three meet again?” of Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 1. The Third Witch, a 2001 novel written by Rebecca Reisert, tells the story of the play through the eyes of a young girl named Gilly, one of the witches. Gilly seeks Macbeth's death out of revenge for killing her father.
J. K. Rowling has cited the Three Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth as an influence in her Harry Potter series. In an interview with The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet, when asked, "What if never heard the prophecy?", she said, "It's the 'Macbeth' idea. I absolutely adore 'Macbeth.' It is possibly my favourite Shakespeare play. And that's the question isn't it? If Macbeth hadn't met the witches, would he have killed Duncan? Would any of it have happened? Is it fated or did he make it happen? I believe he made it happen." On her website, she referred to Macbeth again in discussing the prophecy: "the prophecy (like the one the witches make to Macbeth, if anyone has read the play of the same name) becomes the catalyst for a situation that would never have occurred if it had not been made." More playfully, Rowling also invented a musical band popular in the Wizarding world called The Weird Sisters that appears in passing in several books in the series as well as the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The third Harry Potter movie's soundtrack featured a song by John Williams called "Double Trouble", a reference to the witches' line, "Double double, toil and trouble". The lyrics of the song were adapted from the Three Witches' spell in the play.
Read more about this topic: Three Witches
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“We could not well camp higher, for want of fuel; and the trees here seemed so evergreen and sappy, that we almost doubted if they would acknowledge the influence of fire; but fire prevailed at last, and blazed here, too, like a good citizen of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Concord River is remarkable for the gentleness of its current, which is scarcely perceptible, and some have referred to its influence the proverbial moderation of the inhabitants of Concord, as exhibited in the Revolution, and on later occasions.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)