preview

Witches Role In Macbeth Essay

Better Essays

The Role of Witches in William Shakespeare's Macbeth

In Macbeth the witches make a huge contribution to the play and the way it comes across to an audience. The witches portray many themes in Macbeth, such as the theme of fate, and the way that they are supposed to have the power of changing someone's fate, and the way they can control people using their power. The witches also depict a theme of pure evil, and the way they treat others in the play shows this. Religion also is a big theme in Macbeth, references to the trinity, whether it is the unholy, or the holy trinity. Also blasphemous and sacrilegious beliefs appear often throughout the play. As well as these themes, one of the biggest is the …show more content…

This is the first time that the witches are connected with Macbeth in the play, and it is also the first time that the audience is informed of a possible supernatural power that Macbeth could hold. It also describes the way Macbeth beats even the fiercest opponents just by using the power of his sword.

The witches obviously have a big impact on Macbeth throughout the play, as you can see the change he undergoes, from being a savage warrior, to a power hungry king.

"Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps"

This line describes Macbeth's brutal murder of a Norwegian he was battling against. It shows again the close connection between the brutality of Macbeth and the witches. This way of killing somebody is very similar to the way a witch would go about killing someone, and it is almost like a ritual killing, which not only links with the witches, but also the theme of religion. It comes across as if Macbeth is sacrificing the person he has killed for a certain cause, which is again, a clear link with the kind of ritual that witches practice. This line also shows how Macbeth starts out as a brutal warrior at the start of the play, and this helps enhance the change he undergoes at the hands of the witches.

The witches are always described as being completely abnormal, to the

Get Access