The Witches and their equivocations play a vital Essays

The Witches' and their equivocations play a vital Essays The Witches' and their equivocations play a vital role in the downfall of Macbeth. The context of this play is important because Macbeth was written at a time when James the sixth was the King of England, it is through King James' interest in the satanic activities that Shakespeare wrote about the Witches' in the play Macbeth. Shakespeare depicts the witches as being the "instruments of darkness" and as there are three witches in the play, they symbolise the unholy trinity. During act 1 of the play one of the things that the witches prophecised was that Macbeth "shall be the king", this stimulated Macbeth's dark ambitions and desires to become a King. The misleading prophecy gave Macbeth false hope which ultimately led Macbeth to murder King Duncan. The murder of King Duncan impacted the supernatural aspect of the society and put the natural order in chaos, where the "horses ate each other" and the owl killing a flacon. The witches and Lady Macbeth are all shown to be evil throughout majority of the play, unlike the witches who were evil since the start of the play, Lady Macbeth fell into the hands of evil due to her desire for power and ambition of rising to the positon of the queen of Scotland. Due to this desire of Lady Macbeth, she manipulates and deceives Macbeth into killing King Duncan, by making him go against what his own consciousness was telling him.