Saturday 8 April 2017

What is the role of the three witches in Macbeth?

It is also possible that the Weird Sisters do not have the ability to prophesy the future and actually only tell Macbeth the things they do in order to manipulate him into corrupting himself with his own ambition. After all, when they say in the first scene that "Fair is foul, and foul is fair," they imply that they are going to make good things seem bad and bad things seem good, a manipulative activity....

It is also possible that the Weird Sisters do not have the ability to prophesy the future and actually only tell Macbeth the things they do in order to manipulate him into corrupting himself with his own ambition. After all, when they say in the first scene that "Fair is foul, and foul is fair," they imply that they are going to make good things seem bad and bad things seem good, a manipulative activity. Then, when they tell him that he will be made the Thane of Cawdor, they aren't actually telling him the future; they are telling him something that has already happened (in the scene prior), though Macbeth isn't yet aware that it has happened. When Ross tells Macbeth that Duncan has named him Thane of Cawdor, it seems like the Weird Sisters predicted the future. 


To be sure, they do have some supernatural ability: they vanish, mystically appear, and even conjure some freaky apparitions (with the help of Hecate). In Shakespeare's era, people didn't like the idea that fate controlled their futures, that no matter what they did, a specific something was sure to happen; they much preferred to believe they had some agency and control in their own lives. Shakespeare certainly seems to leave the question about whether the Weird Sisters truly know the future or simply manipulate Macbeth for their own amusement open.

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