For Shakespeare, although their role doesn’t go beyond that of agents and witnesses, the Three Witches represent evil, darkness, chaos, and conflict. Their mere presence (a group of women who are “different”) communicates treason and impending doom. In Shakespeare’s day, witches were seen as worse than rebels as they were not only political traitors, but spiritual traitors as well as they were not governed by husbands or politicians. In the case of his three witches, much of the confusion that springs from them comes from their ability to straddle the play’s borders between reality and the supernatural. They are so deeply entrenched in both worlds that it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they are merely its agents. Unlike what women were “supposed” to be a the time, the three women are not being subject to the rules of the real world.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://martinifisher.com/2020/12/07/in-defense-of-witches-why-are-we-so-afraid-of-them/