How does Shakespeare use the supernatural in Macbeth?
Key techniques
Shakespeare uses the supernatural in Macbeth not as spectacle but as a moral mirror - an externalisation of the desires the human characters are not yet honest enough to own. The witches speak in trochaic tetrameter, a metre that beats backwards against the iambic pulse of the play's mortal speech, and their equivocations dramatise the way ambition lies even when it tells the truth. For a Jacobean audience whose king had personally tried witches and authored Daemonologie, the supernatural was not a metaphor but a live theological threat, and Shakespeare exploits that anxiety to interrogate the limits of human agency.
From the opening scene, Shakespeare uses the witches to invert order. Their paradox 'fair is foul, and foul is fair' establishes a moral universe where appearances cannot be trusted. The chiastic structure mirrors itself, enacting linguistically the inversion it describes. Crucially, this line is given to the supernatural before any human speaks - Shakespeare structurally privileges the witches' worldview, allowing it to colour every subsequent scene. When Macbeth's first line later echoes them with 'so foul and fair a day', the audience hears the contamination already at work. The supernatural is not waiting to corrupt Macbeth; it has already shaped the air he breathes.
Unlock the remaining 4 annotated paragraphs
Create a free account to read every grade-band response, examiner commentary, and annotation. No card needed for the 7-day trial.
Use this essay well
Don't copy the words - copy the moves. Notice how each paragraph opens with a committed argument, embeds a short quotation inside a sentence about method, and only then reaches for context. Try writing your own answer to a comparable question and self-mark against the annotations.
Fair-dealing notice: this essay is original revision material written by The English Hub. Any quotations from Macbeth are reproduced as short fair-dealing extracts for the purpose of criticism and review under section 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights in the underlying primary text remain with the original rightsholders.