Use of witches in Macbeth

William Shakespeare uses witches in his tragedy, Macbeth. The encounter of Macbeth with the witches represents the turning point of the tragedy and Shakespeare gets advantages as well as some disadvantages by exploiting it. The witches' speeches are the only verse in the all tragedy that are written using the rhyming couplet. It clearly reminds of oral tradition so it both recalls an ancient time and helps the reader to remember the speech.

         First of all, the encounter and the further Macbeth's letter to his wife, advance an excuse to deal with Macbeth's personality. On the other hand the events seem unavoidable: two of the first three prophecies are true and it is natural to think that the third will be true too. The reader thinks immediately that Macbeth will not be able to control his ambition but on the same time he thinks if the prophecies may be deceitful or about the role of fate in life. However Shakespeare exploits the reader's reaction to settle Macbeth's inner fight between his ambition and his loyalty and this is what gives great importance to Macbeth.

         In the second place the encounter represents a credible turning point in the tragedy at Shakespeare's time. Moreover the second encounter with the witches is exploited to create surprise at the end of the tragedy: this time the prophecies are deceitful.

         Furthermore witches made the tragedy current at Shakespeare's time. It was generally believed that witches existed in the Renaissance. Witchcraft recalls the Medieval superstition but in Macbeth it is no longer related to religion, it is focused on man in a Renaissance perspective. So it added topicality and mystery to the tragedy making it more interesting. On the contrary witchcraft makes it less credible to the reader who is not superstitious, especially nowadays. However Shakespeare could not know what culture would be like in the following centuries and in writing his tragedies he tried to the met the tastes of everyone, and superstition was widespread at his time.

         It is not possible to know if Shakespeare believed in witches or not, however his choice is effective, well-planned and last but not least, it met the tastes of almost everyone at his time.