 Some literary critics and historians argue that not only does Lady Macbeth represent an anti @-@ mother figure in general , she also embodies a specific type of anti @-@ mother : the witch . Critic Joanna Levin defines a witch as a woman who succumbs to Satanic force , a lust for the devil , and who , either for this reason or the desire to obtain supernatural powers , invokes ( evil ) spirits . English physician Edward Jorden published Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother in 1603 , in which he speculated that this force literally derived from the female sexual reproductive organs . Because no one else had published any other studies on the susceptibility of women , especially mothers , to becoming both the witch and the bewitched ( i.e. demonically possessed ) , Jorden 's findings helped create the foundation for the views popularized during the Renaissance about the relationship between women and witchcraft . Levin refers to Marianne Hester 's Lewd Women and Wicked Witches : A Study of Male Domination , in which Hester articulates a feminist interpretation of the witch as an empowered woman . Levin summarises the claim of feminist historians like Hester : the witch should be a figure celebrated for her nonconformity , defiance , and general sense of empowerment ; witches challenged patriarchal authority and hierarchy , specifically " threatening hegemonic sex / gender systems . " This view associates witchcraft — and by extension , Lady Macbeth — not with villainy and evil , but with heroism . 
