When you read William Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, it seems that Macbeth was predestined to do the terrible deeds that he did. However, there is also a strong argument that Macbeth exercised his free will and chose to do those things himself. This discussion leads to many different topics, but mostly refers to spirituality. The concept of free will and how it relates to Macbeth and our lives today provides a relevant and interesting topic for further discussion. The first argument for Macbeth's predestination emerges in the first act when the witches called themselves the “strange” sisters: strange sisters hand in hand” (I.iii. line 32). At the time Macbeth wrote, strange did not mean strange or unusual as it means today. Strange comes from the Old English word wyrd, meaning fate.1 Essentially, witches called themselves sisters of “fate.” As defined by Merriam-Webster, fate is “an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end.” 2 Based on this definition, it appears that the women of destiny either controlled how history unfolded, or had the ability to see what would happen. In any case, Macbeth had no control over his life, so he was basically a pawn on a bloody chessboard moving under the control of "destiny." believe that their statements could not be false. “The spirits that know/ All mortal consequences...” (V.iii. lines 4-5). This fact is reiterated when Macbeth draws all his confidence from those prophecies towards the end of the play: "But swords make me smile, weapons laugh in contempt, / Wielded by a man who was born of a woman." (V.vii. lines 12-13). (A... middle of paper... in the context of Macbeth, but once these beliefs are placed in the realm of the real world, there is much more room for discussion. Things in real life are less certain and there are many variables that can influence a person's opinion on this topic. Ultimately, it is a personal decision on which everyone exercises their own freedom of choice to determine what they believe. 2. "Fate - Definition and more from the online Merriam-Webster dictionary. November 24, 2010. .3 Shakespeare, William Literature [Gr. 12]. Literature of Great Britain with the classics of the world [Tex.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000. 301-82.