Macbeth Case

When one ponders about the idea of witchcraft, a sense of wickedness comes to mind. Witches, in the time period in which William Shakespeare's Macbeth was written, were used as a scapegoat for the ills of society. Witches, generally, were not accepted by the overall society and therefore, stood out to the public as an easy target to blame. The audience of Macbeth believed in the fact that witches truly existed. They thought the witches were the devil's disciple who served to represent the demonic in the real world. But the question here is to ask is how much do the witches in Macbeth actually influence the play? What are the witches' purposes? Shakespeare used the witches to represent the dark side of human nature in the play. The three witches, whether it is through the eponymous protagonist, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, or simply the way that the weird sisters speak through paradox, are vital to the play because they reflect the corrupting influence of feminine power.

Lady Macbeth serves to represent the undignified authority of feminine control throughout the play. Through the portrayal of the witches being supernatural beings serving to represent dark side of human nature they need a way to constantly keep Macbeth under their dominance. There would absolutely be no way for the witches to mediate with Macbeth if they did not have a human mediator. Lady Macbeth serves as the human mediator that the witches needed to intervene with Macbeth. The thought that "Lady Macbeth could be in league with the witches and be a dark witch herself" makes perfect sense because the witches are supernatural beings and cannot always mediate witch Macbeth (Petsche 4). What Petsche is trying to say is quite clear. Lady Macbeth is in fact participating in the feminine influence on Macbeth. By doing so, the witches have a way to deal with Macbeth without him knowing that he is dealing with the evil witches themselves. Lady Macbeth is also thought of as a "witch of velleity and gestures" (Willis 4). Macbeth has absolutely no idea that he is dealing with the witches when he is around his wife. On the outside, she is a perfectly normal human being, but on the inside, has an evil soul brought about by the witches.

In the time period that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, females did not have any power in society. However, Lady Macbeth is very powerful which represents the pure evilness of the power of women. Lady Macbeth's urge to ridden her feminine qualities and become a dominant figure can be seen when she says:

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me form the crown to the toe, top-full

Of direst cruelty. (Shakespeare 1.5.40-43)

Although she does not hold the supernatural powers that the witches have, that does not mean that the three weird sisters do not possess her. In the Elizabethan era, because females did not have power, they could not have any authority over anyone. However, this changed when we note that the females in the play, Lady Macbeth and Witches, have major control when Lady Macbeth convinces Macbeth to go on with the murder of Duncan. Having power as a female represents the corruption of female control. Lady Macbeth would definitely be considered corrupt. Jennifer Riedel makes this clear when she states "Although not a secret black and midnight hag, as an evil female, Lady Macbeth could be considered a witch according to the standards of Shakespeare's day" (1). The witches and Lady Macbeth are "all that women are not supposed to be in Elizabethan society, which is ironic as well since there was a powerful, single, woman monarch" (Petsche 5). One gets an idea that because the witches are females, gathering another female would only build up the controlling influence of females.

Lady Macbeth further shows the corrupting power of the witches through her guilt-ridden, nocturnal confessions of her evil deeds. Lady Macbeth surely feels the guilt of forcing her husband into committing the acts that she had set fourth. So because of this shows many signs of her terrible actions while unconscious. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth shows signs of being possessed. One way that she is shown to be trying to "clear her of the treacherous murder of King Duncan" would be when Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and is constantly scrubbing her hands (Willis 3) Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking at this time in which she preforms this action. By Lady Macbeth washing her hands for a long period of time, she makes it clear that she does in fact feel the guilt of her actions that she did commit. If she knew that what she did was wrong, then why did she do it? Absolutely nothing would stop Lady Macbeth or the witches from obtaining more power throughout the play. Another way that Lady Macbeth is seen dealing with the witches is during the banquet scene when "[Macbeth's] wife kept outside, trying to mediate between him and the external world" (Willis 5). By this, Willis is saying that when Macbeth sees Banquo's spirit and starts freaking out, Lady Macbeth is the one who tries to calm her husband down. By trying to mediate between Macbeth and the demonic world of the dead, one can see how Lady Macbeth is thought of to be associating with the supernatural witches.

The word patterns and tone of the witches distinguish them from the rest of society as different which represents the evil in society. The three weird sisters are by no means human; they are supernatural. The tone of the three sisters distinguishes them from human people who speak normally for the current time period. The three weird sisters speak with paradoxes and through constant use of these paradoxes, the witches' words are echoed in the linguistic patterns of Macbeth in the play. The way that the witches talk is not normal because "The paradoxes in the witches' language are a perfect expression of the essence of forces in the world that work against the rational order God created in the beginning" (Kranz 4). Since the witches are supernatural beings, they go against the Great Chain of Being (natural order of things in the world). What Kranz is trying to get across is that the witches are reflecting the corrupting influence of feminine power by being different form the rest of society. Further revealing that the witches go against the Great Chain of Being and the way God intended the world to be is when Kranz states "The tune of the witches clearly distinguishes them from the human characters, who always speak in blank verse, rhymed iambic pentameter, or prose" (5). The witches are the controlling influence on Macbeth throughout the whole entire play. Because the "witches poetry is the controlling influence",