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

The Power of the Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth    The tragedy of Macbeth comes about because of a single event in his life. If that one moment, the meeting with the witches on the heath, had not happened then 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 powerful force of ambition was unleashed within Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It is the combination of these two factors, the meeting with the witches and Macbeth's own inner demons, that lead to tragedy, and make the play 'terrifying' in the Aristotelian sense. The three witches are certainly responsible for initiating the events that lead to Macbeth's 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! feed straight into his desire for advancement. At this point in the play he is the newly 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 conversation 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, Lady Macbeth is only a helper: it is Macbeth's 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. London: 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  Ã‚   Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚