Stereotypes Of Women In Macbeth

Calling the witches ugly would be a huge understatement, they are worse than that as they cannot even be described as human, they are referred to as the ‘weird sisters’ by Banquo and Macbeth throughout the play but whether they are even girls is questionable, as Banquo even says at one point ‘you should be women and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.’ Banquo also says ‘so withered and wild in their attire’ They are never described as anything but repulsive, Macbeth describes them as an infection ‘infected by the air whereon they ride’ Macbeth calls them ‘filthy hags’ In Polanski’s film of Macbeth one of the witches is deformed and does not have a face, which shows how he interprets how ugly Shakespeare was trying to explain they were.
This brings me on to how the witches in Macbeth fit a stereotype. The fact that the witches are ugly is a stereotype in itself because witches are rarely stereotyped as being beautiful women. ‘Where hast thou been sister?’ ‘Killing swine.’ In the middle ages if a lot of farm animals were getting ill it would be blamed on witchcraft so it is therefore stereotypical that they kill pigs. They can predict the future, which shows they have supernatural powers and are psychic which is what you would expect a witch to