Macbeth - How Women Are Depicted In Act I

Authors Avatar
In this essay, I will discuss how Shakespeare has represented woman in his shortest tragedy, Macbeth. Macbeth, a play written in 1603, tells the tale of the dangers of lust for power and betrayal of friends. In this play, we follow Macbeth as he starts of as a noble warrior who is controlled by his wife and his rise to power. By Act 3 Scene 1, he has assumed the kingship. The rest of the play follows the disintegration of all that he has achieved, a process which ends in his death and his throne being overtaken with a new king.

In the Shakespearean era, there was an order in society, similarly to how there is in India today. People stuck to their role in the social order and believed that anybody who stepped out of their right was chastised. In the early 1600's, people were very religious. Nearly the whole of Great Britain were strict followers of the Christian religion and the Bible. This meant that they believed God was at the top of this order. People also believed that God had a representative on Earth, in the form of the Monarch. If some one threatened the sovereign's rule, that person was considered an enemy of God, and usually was excommunicated, killed, or exiled. It was a way in which to keep all the citizens in line and punish them in the name of God. The King of England at the time was basically the closest person to God. As many people believed in God, they also believed that the King was omnipotent as well. When Macbeth tries to take kingship later on in the novel, we see that he fails and that maybe, Shakespeare is showing that anyone who refuses to stay in their rightful place will suffer.

Below the King, came his noble men known as thanes. They were part of the aristocratic class of men and were very well respected. However, their wives, like most women, were not treated equally at all. They were higher up than an ordinary woman, however never equal to their male counterpart.

Below these woman came servants, who are always towards the end of the social scale. But then there were witches. Witches were outcast from society. You can see this because they appear at the bottom of the scale. Women were marginalised from society and many people used witchcraft as an excuse to do so. At the time, people hated the idea of witches. Anything that went wrong would be blamed on these innocent women.

The King at the time, James I, himself was terrified of witches. He took an active part in witch trials, as he thought that as the representative of God, the witches would target him as agents of the devil. He wrote a book called demonologie which detailed their accused powers to forecast the future, affecting the weather and cursing their enemies.

Shakespeare decides to open the play with the witches to create a dramatic effect. A Jacobian audience would've been startled by the sight of these witches and Shakespeare draws their attention with this start. Our first view of these witches shows that they are not customary women. When we first meet them in the play, they are gathering at a deserted place on an open wasteland. They also meet in thunder and lightning, when most people refuse to go out. We begin to wonder why they are irregular as such.

They are meeting in this type of weather as Shakespeare uses 'pathetic fallacy' as one of his techniques. He is showing that the weather is affecting their mood to be evil and immoral, as thunder often is. We later learn that they are subsidiary to the community and cannot meet in public, in fear of being convicted for their acts. The hurly-burly mentioned shows signs of chaos and turbulence to indicate to the audience that these witches are not calm.

Often, the witches speak in rhyming couplets throughout the play. This has a powerful effect on the audience, especially ones who were hugely fearful of witches. The beat that they are producing has an aggressive impact, clearly stating their intentions to the audience.

The witches also seem as if they have the capability to predict the future, proving further powers to us. The witches are prophesying as to when the battle will end. They know that the battle will be over soon as they have predicted this. The 'wh' sounds are powerful and also show they are not pondering over when the battle will terminate, but they are certain to when it will happen, confirming their ability to envisage the future. The alliteration of the 'b' sound in 'burly' and 'battle' also have a powerful effect as they are syllables which have to be forced out of the mouth.

This also shows that the witches remain neutral over the battle scenario as they are not particular over who they are supporting. This phrase may also be interpreted as Macbeth's fate as further in the novel, we see that in order to win over the kingship, he loses his pride and true personality.

Again, we see that their next meeting will be at a desert, remote place, the heath, showing once again that they are hiding away from all attention.

The witches also show more staggering powers when they show that they can control the destiny of human beings. From the first scene, we understand that these woman need to meet Macbeth and they will dictate his life in order to do so. As readers, it is unclear why the witches wish to meet Macbeth, maybe just to cause trouble or seek revenge for something that he has done to them earlier.
Join now!


We see in another way that they have a connection to Satan. Their familiars call out for them and they reply. This adds to the eerie feeling we receive from the witches. Familiars were spirits from Satan's behalf. Despite not being as intelligent as their masters, they were known to be as smart as a human being. This is what many people believed if they accepted the idea of witchcraft.

For the second time in the first scene, we see that there will always be a divide between appearance and reality. The witches plan to hover ...

This is a preview of the whole essay