Banquo: …you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret. (Act 1, Scene 3)
They are the only characters that have no gender and therefore they appear perverse, distorted creatures and evil. Shakespeare has excluded the witches as much as possible from the normally accepted character in order to create the barrier between the witches’ world and the audience’s world. He has made them mysterious and strange to people.
Their language separates them from other characters such as Macbeth. The witches speak in rhyming couplets using the tetrameter, whilst the other characters all speak in blank verse that does not rhyme but has a meter (iambic pentameter). They are supernatural beings and therefore they speak in an unnatural way. Their riddles and chants are faster and more rhythmic which enables Shakespeare to draw them to the attention of the audience in order to create an eerie effect. They use aural and visual imagery to make it possible for the audience to feel the evilness of the witches chants and spells. Onomatopoeia is used in order to create the atmosphere around their concoctions;
All Witches: double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. (Act 4, Scene 1)
In their potion, in Act 4, scene 1, their ingredients are given in the form of a list, which intensifies the description, atmosphere and the argument.
Witch: …Fillet of fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake,
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog, (Act 4, scene 3)
Assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds, is used in their famous saying;
Witch: Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble. (Act 4, scene 1)
Their way of speaking along with alliteration, listing, assonance and onomatopoeia is a more descriptive form of language superlatively suited for spells or chanting.
The witches usually congregate in desolate abandoned places in the middle of Scottish moors, on ‘barren heaths’ usually in the middle of storms;
Witch: When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning or in rain? (Act 1, scene 1)
This represents evil or bad goings on where no one would ever find them. It was standard thinking that storms were associated with witches, as bad happenings could occur during storms; for example when James I sailed back from Denmark, he was encountered by raging storms and blamed it on a group of Scottish witches.
They can induce storms and rain, making them appear more evil. Here Shakespeare used the information from James I’s Daemonologie, to characterize the evil of the witches’ accommodation, and places where they are found. He uses the witches to express their desire to make evil by creating bad weather (storms etc.).
The stage directions also implicate that the witches are wicked. In ‘Act 1 Scene 1’ the witches appear in thunder and lightening, setting the tone of the play as ‘evil’. At the end of the scene the witches ‘vanish in mist’, this is typical of witches in Britain in the 17th century. Unlike the European version of witches flying, the witches in this play vanish and materialize. This makes them more sinister, as we cannot tell where they go and when they go. Shakespeare wanted to create the illusion of the witches’ spirits existing around us when they vanish. The fact that they always vanish in mist makes the atmosphere denser as there is no telling whether they are still present or whether they have actually vanished. In Act 4 scene 1 the witches ‘rise, one after the other, from the flames’ of a fire, whilst all around there is thunder. This sets the tone for this scene; the audience knows that this last scene with the witches will possess evil. After every chant of…
All: Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
…the witches stir the cauldron. This rhythmic movement shows that the potion is a spell and needs to be stirred precisely on the right words or beats. When Macbeth has arrived and is witnessing the apparitions, with every apparition there is a thunderbolt. This shows the darkness and evil of the sightings. When all the witches vanish they dance; ‘Music, the witches dance, and vanish’. British witches were not known to dance so the audience will have been taken by surprise, but with this they would see the intense wickedness within the play.
Witches were known for their prophecies and therefore Shakespeare made these the main objects, which direct the path of the play. The witches influence Macbeth: whilst Macbeth is in the hands of the witches the kingdom becomes increasingly more unpleasant.
They performed many spells that witches were thought to cast in the 16th century; for example, they cast the ‘pining’ spell on a sailor;
“Weary sev’n-nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine”
Under the witches’ influence, Macbeth seems to become evil himself. They seem to invoke the foulest spirits of darkness within him. The witches have their own purposes into which men fit and which men can serve. In the middle of the play Macbeth consults the witches, as he is afraid to acknowledge his own evil. However the witches do not make any promises: they utter riddles, which Macbeth interprets to suit his own evident interests. Macbeth more often speaks in rhyming couplets than any other character; as though he has an affinity with the witches. By the end of the play the witches have thoroughly taken Macbeth over. It is as though Macbeth is being possessed by the devil himself: he feels no pain; he only deals in evil deeds. He realises that the only way to rid himself of these deeds is by his demise.
Lady Macbeth is obsessed by the witches’ prophecies and sets out to do her up most to see that they come true. They bring out a forceful woman, who wants to suppress her femininity in order to manipulate her husband into doing evil. However, she breaks down in remorse towards the end and commits suicide.
Shakespeare characterised the witches in Macbeth to fit in with James I’s concepts of witchcraft, as outlined in James I’s book, Daemonologie, because Shakespeare wished to please him with this play. Shakespeare mixes the traditional British with the traditional continental witch. British witches were believed to only speak in rhymes, act uncannily and creep about. However, in Europe the witches danced and used cauldrons, both of which were used in Macbeth, but were not common in Britain.
Witches were able to raise storms and winds, as they were able to in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Witches usually had familiars with them;
“I come Graymalkin”(cat) (Act 1 scene 1)
Familiars were animals that had sold their soul to the devil. Witches could send their injurious familiar’s spirit to harm their enemies. Witches were thought to have a ‘devil’s teat’ for the familiars to suck blood from. Their familiars were like their children.
Witches would be able to change into the form of an animal, corresponding to the human body;
“…like a rat without a tail” (Act 1 scene 3)
Witches carried out common spells;
1 witch: Where hast thou been sister?
2 witch: Killing swine
3 witch: Sister, where thou?
1 witch: A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap
And munched, and munched, and munched: ‘Give me’, quoth I,
‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump fed ronyon cries.
(Act 1 scene 3)
This was standard witchcraft: ‘killing swine’ was illegal behaviour and an example of the kind of things that witches were accused of. The request for sharing chestnuts was typical too: the witch was very poor, a beggar, and the sailor’s wife had been fed before. Witches in Macbeth boiled ‘hell-broth’ in a cauldron. This tradition was European and many witches in Europe would gather together and have a feast whilst boiling up unbaptised children. Shakespeare would have got this knowledge from sources such as Medea or Clytemnestra. The materials added to the concoction made the potion magical and were chosen to concoct a charm.
To conclude, the three witches, seen as sorcerers, in Macbeth were characterized to fit in with the believed significance and status of British witches in the 17th century. They were rowdy, evil and sneaky. They manipulated people to do things for them: they manipulated Macbeth into changing the path of history. They made prophecies, and they had familiars. However Shakespeare added some continental values that were not common in Britain. This made it more interesting and catching for the audience. It is obvious that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth for King James I as he included information from Daemonologie and he complimented James I’s ancestors in the play;
Macbeth: “…royalty of nature” (about Banquo)
Macbeth: “He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour” (Act 3 scene 1)
Macbeth was written to attract both common and aristocratic audiences: to thrill and frighten, based on their ‘factual’ beliefs of witchcraft.
What is the witches’ thematic significance?
Shakespeare uses the three witches as a tool to carve history through influencing the evil deeds of man. The witches are the malevolent forces in the play, who seek to lead all humans away from goodness. In Macbeth, they are responsible for the moral degeneration of Macbeth throughout the play. Shakespeare has used them in this play to create an inhuman atmosphere. They appear in Act 1, scene 1, where they immediately begin setting the main theme; evil. The evil present in Macbeth is brought through the witches unnaturalness and disorder. They create themes such as corruption, manipulation, fate, the question of gender, and the supernatural. They are only sighted a few times during the play, yet their effect lingers throughout.
The witches are manifestations of evil in the world. Their entire existence is focussed on tempting and tormenting people. They create evil as they manipulate people. They influence Macbeth through equivocation. Their hazy predictions are unclear promises about his future (promises that come true, yet not in the way Macbeth believed). They exist to show the potential for evil to contaminate the human mind. They create ambition in Macbeth’s mind, and as he toys with this ambition, a growing evil appears. The moral perplexity of the witches ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’ induces the difference between good and evil. The witches are evidently ‘the instruments of darkness’. The witches control the entire action of the play. They guide Macbeth through his rise and his downfall.
The witches appear supernatural, as they possess more than usual amounts of evil and unnaturalness. They appear well outside the limits of human comprehension. Every time they appear in the play an unusual event occurs; in scene 3, Act 1 the witches are foretelling the future.
‘Banquo: You greet with present grace and great prediction’
Their evil ways, their disappearing, the attitude of the witches all create the supernatural effect.
Corruption and manipulation are a major cause of evil influencing the mind. The witches rather than forcing Macbeth to carry out their prophecies manipulate him, through a sense of power. They deliver the prophecies in such a way that Macbeth can only look at the positive side and does anything possible to gain this. They entice Macbeth with fantastical visions, and in Act 1, scene 3, they seal their curse;
‘The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about,
Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
Peace! The charms wound up’
The witches corrupt and manipulate Macbeth’s mind through hazy prophecies in order to shape history a different way.
In Macbeth the witches appear to be of no gender, as Banquo questions in act 1 scene 3;
‘…you should be woman,
Yet your beards forbid me to interpret’
All other characters in the play are either male or female yet the witches seem to be both. They seem to be in the same league as Lady Macbeth, as she asks the spirits to ‘unsex me here’. The witches’ true identity is unclear - apart from their servitude to Hecate.
Many individuals question whether Macbeth brought this fate upon himself or whether the witches did. Though the witches sought after Macbeth and told him their prophecies, Macbeth unlike Banquo toyed with these prophecies and decided that the prophecies would bring harm even before he carried them out. Macbeth carried out the deeds of murder and treachery, not forced by the witches to do so. So we must conclude that Macbeth brought on his own fate.
The witches’ prophecies held Macbeth’s fate hidden deep inside. Their true meanings were not shown until Macbeth and his wife were deceased. His downfall was caused by his weakness for ambition and his optimism.
So the witches’ thematic significance in Macbeth is to control the atmosphere and the story line of the play. Their evilness affects Macbeth’s actions throughout, as does their ability to create fate and corruption, and to manipulate an individuals mind. Their non-existent gender, their perverse pleasure in using their knowledge to play with the future of human beings, and their ability to twist peoples minds, together with their supernatural appearance and settings create the evil and darkness of the play.
