Macbeth and Witchcraft: A Study of Sources, Influence and the Fall

Abstract

It is common in productions of Macbeth to present three sisters on a balcony or raised platform, the whole action of the play. Although this direction runs the risk of attributing too much responsibility to the sisters for Macbeth's behaviour through suggesting that they are stage managing the whole action, it does impress dramatically the extent to which the play is imaginatively controlled by the type of evil they propagate. Type of magic by their language and their ritualistic chanting is directly correspondent to the unnatural phenomena that occur the night of Duncan's murder. Shakespeare leaves the role of the witches as somewhat ambiguous. However, there is enough evidence in Macbeth, along with a consideration of Renaissance beliefs in witches as evil or having the capability to inflict harm, to suggest that the witches of Macbeth are agents of the Devil. Despite all this, Macbeth turns out to be the most powerful source of the supernatural, which most of us identify with man’s nature to transform into, what one can call, Faustian. The paper tries to badger the balance out in the favour of the witches, but concludes otherwise. Macbeth does come out the “author of his proper woe,” the wizard behind all that dwells in the realm of idiopathic construct