Context & the Supernatural
The World Shakespeare Wrote For
When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth around 1606, England was ruled by King James I — a monarch genuinely fascinated by, and terrified of, witchcraft. James had written his own book on the subject, Daemonologie (1597), and had personally overseen witch trials in Scotland. For a Jacobean audience, the witches in Macbeth were not fantasy figures — they represented a genuine, terrifying threat.
Understanding this context is essential for the exam. The play was written partly to flatter James I and reflect his worldview. Every scene involving the supernatural would have provoked a far stronger reaction from Shakespeare’s original audience than it does from a modern one.
King James I wrote Daemonologie in 1597 and personally attended witch trials. Shakespeare wrote Macbeth partly to appeal to the king’s interests and to warn against the dangers of unchecked ambition and supernatural interference.
Jacobean Attitudes to Witchcraft
In the early seventeenth century, most people believed that witches were real. The 1604 Witchcraft Act made it a capital offence to invoke evil spirits. Witches were thought to be servants of the Devil who could predict the future, control the weather, and cause disease. Their familiars — animals like cats and toads — were considered proof of a pact with Satan.
Shakespeare taps directly into these fears. The witches in Macbeth speak in trochaic tetrameter rather than the iambic pentameter used by other characters, making them sound inhuman. Their chant “Double, double toil and trouble” would have genuinely disturbed an audience that believed such spells could work.
James I firmly believed in the Divine Right of Kings — the idea that monarchs are appointed by God and answerable only to Him. This means that killing a king (regicide) is not simply murder but a sin against the natural and divine order. When Macbeth murders Duncan, he is committing the ultimate crime in Jacobean eyes.
Shakespeare reinforces this through the Great Chain of Being. After Duncan’s murder, the natural world descends into chaos — horses eat each other, the sky darkens, and an owl kills a falcon. These unnatural events signal that Macbeth has ruptured the divinely ordained order.
Act 1, Scene 1: “Fair Is Foul, and Foul Is Fair”
The play opens with the three witches meeting on a desolate heath amid “thunder and lightning.” Their very first scene establishes the theme of moral inversion. The paradox “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” tells the audience that nothing in this play will be as it seems — appearances will deceive, and moral boundaries will collapse.
Notice that Macbeth’s first words in Act 1, Scene 3 echo this line: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” Before he has even met the witches, he speaks their language. Shakespeare suggests that Macbeth is already connected to the supernatural — the seeds of ambition may already exist within him.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” is a chiasmus — a mirror structure that reverses meaning. It establishes the play’s central theme: appearance versus reality. Macbeth echoes this language before meeting the witches, linking him to evil from the start.
Shakespeare uses pathetic fallacy throughout the play to signal the presence of evil. The witches always appear in storms and darkness. After Duncan’s murder, “the night has been unruly” with “strange screams of death.” The disruption of the natural world mirrors the disruption of the political order.
This technique was powerful for a Jacobean audience who believed weather could be influenced by supernatural forces. Shakespeare uses the setting to create an atmosphere of dread that permeates the entire play.
The Role of the Witches: Catalyst or Cause?
A central debate in studying Macbeth is whether the witches cause Macbeth’s downfall or simply reveal ambitions he already possesses. Shakespeare deliberately leaves this ambiguous. The witches prophesy that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and then king, but they never tell him to murder anyone. It is Macbeth and Lady Macbeth who decide to act on the prophecies.
In the AQA exam, exploring this ambiguity is what separates a good response from an excellent one. You might argue that the witches are a dramatic device through which Shakespeare externalises Macbeth’s inner desires, or that they represent the genuine power of evil to corrupt even a brave and loyal subject.
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (Act 1, Scene 1) — Establishes moral inversion and the theme of deceptive appearances.
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen” (Act 1, Scene 3) — Macbeth’s echo of the witches links him to the supernatural before they meet.
“When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” (Act 1, Scene 1) — The witches are associated with storms and chaos from the opening line.