Witches from Macbeth
Created: 2023-01-08
Status: #soil
Last Edited: 2023-01-08
Topic: Shakespeare Macbeth
Projects: #projects/teaching #projects/teaching/macbeth
Source
Origins
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Although most modern copies of the text label the characters as 'weird sisters', the First Folio edition of the play calls them 'weyward Sisters'. The term "weyward Sisters" is an archaic spelling of the word "wayward," which means disobedient or contrary to authority. In Macbeth, the three witches are depicted as mysterious and unpredictable figures who possess a variety of supernatural powers. They are described as setting the action of the play in motion by providing Macbeth with prophecies that encourage him to take drastic action. In this way, they can be seen as a disruptive force in the play, stirring up trouble and leading Macbeth down a path of destruction.
- This suggests they are defined through their wayward behaviour
- Their prophecies lead to both political and personal turmoil
- This suggests they are defined through their wayward behaviour
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The North Berwick witch trials in 1590 occured in Scotland and involved witches confessing to raise a tempest and sabotage King James' boat as he sailed home from Denmark.
Note how the witches discuss raising winds at sea in A1 S3. -
The anti-witchcraft law was renewed by King James in 1604.
- This law remained unchanged until 1736
Interpretations of the Witches
Witches as rebels
Witches were seen in Shakespeare's day as the worst sort of rebels. They were not only political but also spiritual traitors.
Horace Walpole's 1742 parody, The Dear Witches, portrays the three witches as ordinary women who manipulate not through magic but through marriage and patronage and the manipulation of elections.
Witches as a source of moral confusion
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair Hover through the fog and filthy air"
- This muddling of morality can be seen to be their main influence in the play. Macbeth ends up doing evil things because his morality has been corrupted.
- Macbeth gives in to the witches' temptations; Banquo resists them.
- The Devil was thought to act by tempting people to ill rather than by using his own power to do evil things directly.
- Coleridge believed the witches should be ambiguous figures. He noted that no characters actually call them witches in the play.
The power of the witches
Orson Welles stage production of Macbeth portrayed the witches as voodoo priestesses who controlled Macbeth with a voodoo doll, suggesting they were in full control of the character's actions.