Women are not always the affectionate, compassionate, and nurturing people that humanly instincts make them out to be. On the contrary, they are sometimes more ruthless and savage than their male counterparts. A good example of this idea is in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Through the use of various feminine roles throughout the play, Shakespeare manages to portray how dramatically important the witches are, along with how imminent greed and power can eventually grasp hold of Lady Macbeth’s morals, and thrust her into a state of emotional stupor. Shakespeare begins the play with the witches for several reasons. First, the fact that they are witches portrays many evil themes since witches are a universal symbol for an advocate of the devil. They themselves foreshadow malign events to come. For example, to add to the witches’ representation of evil, the clichd background is that of thunder and lightening, which also represents wickedness and confusion. Shakespeare also uses the witches to give some background to the play; they decide to meet with Macbeth “when the battle’s lost and won” (I, I, 4). Here, Shakespeare makes clear the fact that there is a battle taking place and Macbeth is involved. They choose to meet with Macbeth “upon the heath”(I, I, 7), wherein a heath is described as being uncultivated, open land. The uncultivated aspect of the heath can be used to foretell the uncivilized intentions the witches have for Macbeth. The last line of the scene is immensely important, for when the witches say that “fair is foul, and foul is fair”(I, I, 12), the reader Komery 2later understands that this is the main theme of the play. This implies that appearances can be deceiving. What appears to be good can be bad, and this is seen in such ways as the deceptive facade of Lady Macbeth and in the predictions of the witches. The witches provi...
