The people in the Jacobean era believed in the strong presence of evil that plagued their world and specifically accused witches to be responsible for such evil. These influential beliefs can be seen as a common motif in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where the witches have shaped Macbeth’s fate. Moreover the influence and fear of witches and witchcraft in Jacobean society has led to chaotic persecution of those associated with the practice and in Macbeth, the influence of witchcraft incited terror on one king and make decisions of an entire nation. The appearance and abilities of witches and witchcraft are motifs in Jacobean society and in Macbeth.
In Jacobean society, a witch’s appearance were described as old, wrinkled, lean and deformed. They would have unkempt and wild appearances where one cannot distinguish their gender (Porterfield, Warning, Familiarity, and Ridicule). Facial hair was also an indication that a woman might be a witch (Metclaf, The Presentation of Jacobean). They also were known to keep familiars or servants that did their bidding. These familiars were in animal form usually as a cat or toad (First Folio of Macbeth).
Furthermore, under James VI, qualities of an English and Scottish witch intertwined thus the appearance of a recluse English witch who preferred grim activities joined with the appearance of a social Scottish witch who enjoyed dancing (Thompson, Macbeth, King James, and the Witches). Apart from these characteristics witches assemble in covens and hold sabbats. These sabbats were celebrations or rituals in which the witches formed together supposedly to engage in erotic activities and cannibalistic feasts. These celebrations or rituals were a time for mischief and demonic activity (Metclaf, The Presen...
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...e lives of individuals. They are not known to set over the boundaries of what is male and what is female with their appearance. The witches distorted the essence of what makes humanity.
Furthermore, the witches turned good things into bad such as Macbeth who was a brave and honorable man who turned into arrogant tyrant. His rule brought upon anarchy and chaos in a once peaceful kingdom. His unchecked ambition and power was not the only factor to bring him to the edge but also the push from the alluring prophecies made by the witches that tempted him to do things he should not have done. The witches incantation in Act 1 Scene 1 of what is foul becomes fair and what is fair becomes foul is the main connection to the theme of disordered nature (Shakespeare, 272). Due to witchcraft, what was good turned bad and what was bad turned good a disorder nature of the world.
Witchcraft was relentlessly thought as the work of the devil with only sinful and immoral intentions. Julio Caro Baroja explains in his book on Basque witchcraft that women who were out casted from society and unable to fulfill their womanly duties became witches as a way to compensate for her failed life. They were thought to be a threat to society as they dwindled in evil magic. This misunderstanding may have originated from the literary works of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, in their published book, “Malleus Maleficarum”. Accusations of being adulterous, liars and dealing with the devil materialized because of the...
. She claims that the proceeding force connected with lady as-witch in this combination creative ability handles the problem on the power that surpasses embellishment and design the particular discernment connected with witches and witchcraft throughout. Looking at these kind of queries could encourage selection that the mention of their imagination and prejudices attached to the particular "lady as-witch" idea that the current strain on females building in popularity can easily trigger anger these days. She slyly evaluates having less adequate traditional beliefs with regards to the part women performed inside creating our community, at a variety of instances.
“The Devil in the Shape of a Woman” was an excellent book that focuses on the unjusts that have been done to women in the name of witchcraft in Salem, and many other areas as well. It goes over statistical data surrounding gender, property inherence, and the perceptions of women in colonial New England. Unlike the other studies of colonial witchcraft, this book examines it as a whole, other then the usual Salem outbreaks in the late 17th century.
The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be women and most of those who were accused and executed for being witches were women. Why were women there so many women accused of witchcraft compared to men? Were woman accused of witchcraft because men thought it was a way to control these women? It all happened in 1692, in an era where women were expected to behave a certain way, and women were punished if they threatened what was considered the right way of life. The emphasis of this paper is the explanation of Salem proceedings in view of the role and the position of women in Colonial America.
In today’s times, witches are the green complexed, big nosed ladies who ride around on broomsticks at Halloween. Back in the 1600’s, witches looked like average people, but they worked alongside the devil. Salem, Massachusetts, was a religious town of Puritans. They were strong believers in God, and had believed that witches were the devils workers. Everything was usual in Salem in 1692, until, 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigale Williams had sudden outbursts of screaming, contortions and convulsions, the doctor came and diagnosed witchcraft (Blumberg, Jess) And from this time on, the people of Salem believed there were witches all around them.
When someone thinks of a witch, usually he or she thinks about Halloween or the movie The Wizard of Oz. However, during the 16th and 17th century, witches were feared by many. The accusations of witches during this time is the highest reported, more than 500,000 people were tried and more than 100,000 were executed. Many people of the modern era know and believe that witches are not real. This was not the case in the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century. Individuals were prosecuted as witches because people wanted money and to clean up their community, they were women, and the communities needed a scapegoat for their misfortune.
Powerful in nature and curious to the eye, the witches in Macbeth were hooks of fascination. One never knew what would come next when it came to the witches. They possessed a dark authority and supremacy unlike any other and the temptation to ignore them was unfeasible. They brought with them gloomy days and evil thoughts. The witches could draw you in and begin to almost play with your mind if you let them. This is what ultimately led to the down fall of Macbeth. Collectively, the witches in Macbeth acted as a catalyst for all of Macbeth’s actions.
1 Nachman Ben-Yehuda The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective. The University of Chicago, 1980. 15. 2 Levack! 123.3 Levack 164.
“Macbeth” was written between 1603 and 1606, when James VI of Scotland, became James I of England. It could be argued, this play was definitely constructed with James in mind, as he was interested in witchcraft and superstitious activity, which feature in Macbeth, as illustrated in this essay.
There have been various explanations by different historians for why the majority of Witches accused were woman. One of the first models concerning Witchcraft and gender to be produced was the ‘Witch-cult‘ idea. This theory was devised by Margaret Murray in the early 20th century and revolved around the idea of Witchcraft being an actual pre-Christian religion. This pagan woman-based religion centred around ‘The Horned God’ who from the Christian point of view was Satan. Murray writes that the ‘God of the old religion becomes the Devil of the new.’ This religion concerned woman in that it was being supressed by the Christian Church which was a male dominated organisation with an exclusively male hierarchy. In effect the whole Witch-hunt affair was a persecution of woman by men, both being polar opposites even in religion. Murray’s thesis proved very popular with radical feminists from the 1960s onwards, providing the feminist movement with a sort of rallying point, further exaggerating the sex specific elements in the Murray model. Murray’s thesis however, was attacked from day one and continues to be discredited to this day due to the lack of evidence in support of it and th...
Witchcraft is said to be the most widespread cultural phenomenon in existence today and throughout history. Even those who shun the ideas of witchcraft cannot discount the similarities in stories from all corners of the globe. Witchcraft and its ideas have spread across racial, religious, and language barriers from Asia to Africa to America. Primitive people from different areas in the world have shockingly similar accounts of witchcraft occurrences. In most cases the strange parallels cannot be explained and one is only left to assume that the tales hold some truth. Anthropologists say that many common elements about witchcraft are shared by different cultures in the world. Among these common elements are the physical characteristics and the activities of supposed witches. I will go on to highlight some of the witch characteristic parallels found in printed accounts from different parts of the world and their comparisons to some famous fairytales.
During this time a lot of witches were tortured and killed as a model for society and undiscovered witches, to prevent any future attempts to practice this evil deed and eventually ...
The witch is both vulnerable and a powerful figure. The resulting tension between power and powerlessness as a response to laws created by those in power, rather institutionalised power: men, can be seen as expressed through such binary metaphors as that of physical strength and beauty versus weakness and ugliness, kn...
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth, a noble thane, is corrupted because of his unchecked ambitions. Macbeth’s ambitious personality is awakened when three witches appear to hail him as the Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King. This prophecy convinces Macbeth to murder King Duncan, so he can become King; consequently, he is forced to kill others to cover up his first murder. After so much blood is spilled, Macbeth becomes a barbaric tyrant. Macbeth’s 180-degree transformation is a result of the “weird sisters.” Despite the witches being present in only three scenes of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, they advance the plot by foreshadowing events, generating imagery, and introducing main themes.
In the Shakespearean era, there was an eruption of superstition and alleged witchcraft. The people of that time had strong hatred for the ‘devil worshiping’ witches and had various trials and tests to determine their fate. Shakespeare used this as inspiration for his play ‘Macbeth’