Witches in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Witches in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

When comparing the witches from the play 'Macbeth' to their image of

the time we must first make clear what that image is. During Macbeth's

time, the 17th century, there was a universal belief of witches. This

belief was in the fact that witches were powerful and fearful, unlike

their pantomime figures of today, and that they had extraordinary

powers which the public couldn't understand. Using their power they

would do evil things and so as a result the witches were hated.

In the play, 'Macbeth', I will analyse in detail how the witches

reflect this image and then with my accurate answer I will decide if

the witches are solely responsible for Macbeth's downfall or if there

were other factors involved.

To get an image of the witches in Shakespeare's time we must first

look at a contemporary source. 'The anatomy of melancholy' by Robert

Burton is a good text source where a very specific image of witches is

given. I will compare this to 'Macbeth's' witches to see whether they

reflect Burton's ideas and consequently contemporary ideas. Within the

text he mentions that witches can;

"…cause tempests…make friends enemies, and enemies friends…enforce

love, tell any man where his friends are… hurt and infect man and

beasts… fly in the air, meet when and where they will…the aid of

demons, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call

changelings…make men victorious. Fortunate, eloquent…they can walk in

fiery furnaces, make men feel no pain…can stanch blood, represent dead

men's shapes, alter and turn themselves into several forms at their

pleasures."

From this text is the general idea of what witches were thought to be

able to do within their time. Obviously an exact image can't be given

because people's views of witches varied from place to place in that

time but the above source gives a general idea of what witches were

thought to be like: powerful, mysterious and fearful.

With this text and contemporary image I will compare the ideas to