Re: The Problem of the Witches' Powers

I was going to simply respond to Steven Wagner's post, however it became pretty long and I figured I should post it instead. Here's the thing. . .the more I read Shakespeare, the more I see that sometimes his narratives have little holes which we always find ourselves debating over exactly what to fill them in with. I believe we have to forget that there may be these flaws, and look to what each of these instances represents holistically (dealing in absolutes). Every interpretation of the witches' existence deals with a single idea: Fate. Whether we can change it or not is a circularly unanswerable debate, because in Macbeth, like in life, we can never know the truth. So then, along these specific lines, what then do the witches absolutely represent? I think they are symbols singularly of the question of Fate, not possible answers. Moreover, I find them representing the reason why the concept of Fate exists. You see, there is a cause and effect here regarding Fate: we are conscious of our deaths, therefore we can question how it will come to be and why. I think the witches' existences create a parallel progression.

To me, Shakespeare is creating a universe and imposing a question upon it by creating these characters in the same way our own minds create Fate by being conscious. It reminds me of Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," where the entire narration is fun and crazy and pointless, however the point may just simply be, "look at me, I can create something fun and crazy, and who cares if it's pointless." Marquez is not telling us to write pointless fiction or anything like that (offering answers), he's just saying, look at us, we are humans, this is what we do, we tell stories, you can think about it or not, but neither changes anything (I am only a creator). In my opinion, Shakespeare says something similar: who cares if Fate exists or not, we are conscious and we're all going to die, we are humans, this is what we do, we can think about it or not, but neither changes anything (I am only a creator).