The Power of the Witches in Shakespeares Macbeth Essay -- Macbeth e

The Power of the Witches in Shakespeares Macbeth The tragedy of Macbeth comes about beca engagement of a single event in his life. If that one moment, the meeting with the witches on the heath, had not happened thusly Macbeth would no doubt have gone on to be a loyal and respected subject of King Duncan and, later, King Malcolm. However, the meeting did happen and the justly force of ambition was unleashed within Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It is the combination of these two factors, the meeting with the witches and Macbeths own inner demons, that lead to tragedy, and make the play terrifying in the Aristotelian sense. The iii witches are certainly responsible for initiating the events that lead to Macbeths tragedy. Their greeting to him All hail, Macbeth Hail to thee thane of Glamis All hail, Macbeth Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor All hail Macbeth That shalt be king hereafter run for straight into his desire for advancement. At this point in the play he is the spick-a nd-spanly appointed thane of Glamis but assumes that the thane of Cawdor still lives. When news arrives that he is to be the new thane of Cawdor, Macbeth sees the second greeting as a prediction and cannot help but wonder whether the third greeting will also prove accurate. Banquo says that the forces of darkness use the truth to win us to harm but Macbeth is unsure. This supernatural soliciting cannot be good, Cannot be ill. For the audience there is even more to think about. They know from the communication about the sailor whose wife had offended one of them that the witches power is circumscribed. They can torment him but not change his fate. Though his bark cannot be lost Yet it shall ... ...with witches, partly to flatter the witch-hating James I and partly to introduce an exciting flavour of the supernatural into the play. But, exciting as the scenes with the witches and Hecate are, they are not at the heart of the tragedy. The witches powers are limited, La dy Macbeth is only a helper it is Macbeths own weaknesses that bring him down. Works Cited and Consulted Greenblatt, Stephen. Introduction to Macbeth. The Norton Shakespeare. New York Norton, 1997. 2555-63. Hawkins, Michael. The Witches and Macbeth. Focus on Macbeth. Ed. John Russell Brown. capital of the United Kingdom Routledge, 1982. 155-88. Kermode, Frank. Introduction to Macbeth. The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston Houghton, 1974. 1307-11. Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York Washington Press, 1992.