The supernatural forces are used to great effect in Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth.” From the beginning until the end of the play, the forces generate fear, tension and suspense, heightened by the superstition at the time at which the play was first performed in 1606 when even the King, James I, was a firm believer in witches. Although it can be suggested that Lady Macbeth had a more significant role over the events in the play as she took advantage of Macbeth’s pre-existing ambition, Lady Macbeth only achieved that by summoning spirits in order to lose her human qualities. Therefore, it could be implied that it is only the supernatural forces over Lady Macbeth that encouraged her manipulation of her husband’s ambition. Thus, the supernatural forces have the most power over the events in the play as it governs everything.

Through the witches, Shakespeare first presents supernatural chants like ‘fair is foul, and foul is fair.’ The fact that they speak in opposite couplets makes them appear bizarre, and ties to supernatural themes displaying the perversion of nature as if appearances were lost. They also communicate in trochaic tetrameter, which is an unnatural rhythm, distinguishing them from everyone else in the play. Witchcraft was treated very seriously by society during the Jacobean era. The reigning king of the moment, James I, was highly engaged surrounding ideas of the supernatural and witchcraft ideas as shown by the king writing and publishing a book in 1605 called ‘Daemonologie’ which was an efficacious text in which he stated that witchcraft was a reality and that its practitioners should be penalised. We can infer that James’ obsession may have inspired Shakespeare to write “Macbeth” and to have the theme of the supernatural so prominent throughout the play.
The first comment Macbeth makes is “So foul and fair”. This is alarming as the first words Macbeth utters is similar to the witches. This suggests that he has been influenced by the witches to say such comments. This could then indicate that Macbeth’s subsequent murders and visions were of a similar effect of the witches we see in Act 1 Scene 3, suggesting supernatural forces supposedly had control over the acts of Macbeth. The deceit in ‘fair is foul’ foreshadows that Macbeth deceives Duncan and commits the ultimate crime of assassinating him in order to be k