What role does the supernatural play in 'Macbeth'?

Authors Avatar
Will Randall

What role does the supernatural play in 'Macbeth' and how does Shakespeare present it

In order to understand the true influence of witchcraft in Shakespeare's Macbeth, you must first look at the context it was written in. Macbeth was written just after the turn of the 17th century when James the sixth of Scotland assumed the throne of England.

The king had a fascination with the supernatural; witchcraft, apparitions and ghosts, and the evil that these things can create. All of these were of great concern to James, he even wrote a book on the subject. During the same decade Shakespeare wrote King Lear, which heavily focussed on Madness and the chain of being as the King lost control. The theory was that is something happened to the king; everything below in the chain/hierarchy would be affected, which is everything on the planet. Hamlet was also written at this time, this has many references to ghosts and the influence that this has on Hamlet and his sanity.

People at the time also believed in witch craft and perceived it to be a genuine threat to the social order. This was common place at the time all over the Christian world. Shakespeare uses Macbeth in order explore and show what would happen if the social order was influenced by the supernatural. This in a sense is reaffirming the social order by taking it apart in Macbeth.

The first incident involving the supernatural is the opening of the play with the introduction of the witches. The first scene of Macbeth opens with the witches meeting in the middle of a thunderstorm; this creates an air of tension and mystery around the scene and the witches. This is a prime example of pathetic fallacy where the weather and nature is used to create an air of tension and suspicion, as well as making clear the characters intentions or emotions.

In more modern film versions, the witches have been portrayed as young females or males. However in older versions they have been portrayed as the stereotypical old women standing around a smoking cauldron. Yet in Macbeth and Banquos's description (A.1 S.3) they are made out to be ambiguous creatures, not necessarily being male or female 'Upon her skinny lips; you should be a woman, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret.' This leads to speculation as to what the witches look like, whether they are neutral beings, not one gender in particular.
Join now!


It is possible to think however, that the witches may well have been social outcasts, which have turned to the black arts as a form of retribution on the world. (A.1 S.1), one witch was a beggar 'Give me, quoth I, Aroint thee, witch the rump fed runnion cries.' It was not uncommon at the time Macbeth was written for the poor to be the first accused of witchery.

Yet later on (A.1 S.3) after giving Macbeth and Banquo their prophecies they vanish into thin air, this allows speculation as to wether they are in fact supernatural. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay