Comment on the role of the witches in Macbeth.

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SHAKESPEARE PLAY

The witches have a major role in the play. Though they are not always physically present in every scene their supernatural presence is always there in every scene. They influence what happens in the play a lot. Their supernatural presence and wickedness is also passed on to other characters such as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth throughout the play. The witches can influence Macbeth but they cannot control his destiny. Macbeth creates his own misery when he is driven by his own sense of guilt. The witches are only responsible for the introduction of these ideas and for further forming ideas, but it is Macbeths own temptation and desire that brings about his own downfall. Macbeth was responsible for his own actions throughout the play and in the end it was he who made the final decisions.

As soon as the play starts the witches are the first characters to appear in the play which shows their importance in the play because every opening character is very important. There is also thunder and lightning which sets the seen for the spooky witches. Shakespeare might also have used the witches to appear at the beginning of the play to grab the audiences’ attention so they would get interested and also in those days everybody believed in witches so it must have immediately grabbed their attention. Another reason we know that the audiences liked witches is because the whole of Act 3 Scene 5 and 5 lines in Act 4 Scene1 was added by someone else and not Shakespeare because the audience liked to see the witches.

Also when the witches speak they speak in rhyming words which is quite spooky and they say things like ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair’ which would have scared the Shakespearean audience and it also sounds scary. It also shows as that good things might be bad and bad things might be good which is reminiscent of certain characters in the play.

Just before the first time that Macbeth meets the witches they (the witches) start talking about how they tossed a sailors ship in the stormy seas because his wife never gave them some chestnuts that she was eating. This shows us how cruel and mean they are and it also shows us that they are also very powerful because they can control the wind.

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Then the witches tell Macbeth that he will be Thane of Cawdor and eventually be king and they tell Banquo that his sons will be kings. This has an immediate effect on Macbeth who is immediately struck by the prospect of being king of Scotland. On the other hand Banquo, Macbeth’s best friend, thinks this is more a kind of a joke and doesn’t believe it and asks the witches ‘ If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak to me’. In that quote he asks the witches that if they know what is going to happen in the future then tell him what is going to happen to him. The witches tell him that he will be the father of kings and then as Macbeth tries to tell them to stay and tell him more about the prophecies they vanish into thin air. This shows us that Macbeth is immediately struck by the thought of being king and it shows us his eagerness to know more about the prophecy. This also again shows us the power of the witches in that they are able to vanish into thin air, which is also very spooky to a Shakespearean audience. Banquo is a bit suspicious of the witches and unlike Macbeth, who wants to be king, he has no hidden ambitions.

Macbeth is also a bit worried about the thought of Banquo’s children being kings because if he does all the hard work to be king, it will be pointless if his line to the throne stops when he dies.

Also Macbeth doesn’t know that the Thane of Cawdor has betrayed the King of Scotland (King Duncan) and he has been executed so when Ross and Angus come to tell him that he is the new Thane of Cawdor he is amazed and so is Banquo when he says ‘Can the devil speak’, which shows us his amazement. This is a very important bit in the play because the witches’ prophecy has come true and he is now Thane of Cawdor. This makes Macbeth realise that the witches were right and that he will be king. This again shows us the power of the witches in that they are able to tell what is going to happen in the future and this makes Macbeth more determined more than ever to achieve his goal of being king of Scotland. Macbeth also says ‘ The greatest is behind’ which means that the greatest of the prophecies is the last of them and that has not happened yet and all that he has to achieve now is to be crowned king.

After this Macbeth says his first major soliloquy in which he says that if the witches are evil then why have two good things they said come true and if they are good then why does his body act violently to their predictions ‘This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good; if ill, why hath it given me earnest of success, Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor: If good, why do I yield to that suggestion Whose horrid image does unfix my hair And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use if nature?’. Macbeth also uses the word ‘murder’ whereas the witches said nothing about murdering anyone. This shows us that Macbeth has definitely set his sights on being king and is even thinking of murder existing in his imagination. He also sounds confused about the witches and he doesn’t know whether they are evil or good and although he has ambitions to be king he decides to let chance takes its course and says all the bad days will come to an end ‘Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day’.

In the first 3 Scenes the witches have set the play in motion with the prediction of Macbeth being king and we can see how important the witches are, because they have sent this play rolling.

Thereafter, Banquo and Macbeth go to King Duncan at the palace and it is there that King Duncan announces that his eldest son Malcolm will be the next king. As soon as he says this Macbeth moves aside and says to himself ‘The prince of Cumberland! This is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’er leap.’ This is the point where he changes his mind because he sees Malcolm as an obstacle between him and the throne.

He also says ‘Let not light see my black and deep desires’ which admits to us that he has ‘black and deep desires’ and he doesn’t want anyone to know i.e. ‘Let not light see’.

He then writes to Lady Macbeth and tells her about the meeting with the witches. Lady Macbeth is one of the most important characters in the play because she influences Macbeth’s role in the play the most and it is she who drives him to kill King Duncan. Her persuasive techniques are admirable and so make her the most cogent and influential character in the play. Her ruthlessness is also proved when she says about Macbeth ‘Yet I do fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness’. This shows us that even though her husband is in the army, she still believes that, although he is ambitious, he lacks ruthlessness so we only have to imagine how unrelenting Lady Macbeth must be; she will stop at nothing to become queen. Lady Macbeth is an ambitious woman who can manipulate Macbeth easily, this is shown when she says ‘That I may pour my spirits in thine ear’.

When a messenger tells Lady Macbeth that King Duncan will come to stay the night you can fell Lady Macbeths excitement and anticipation and she says her most famous quote of the play in which she says ‘unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the top full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood’. In that quote she shows us fully not only her desperation to kill King Duncan but also her savageness that she wants to be stripped of her womanly qualities, such as love and care, and she wants to be filled with cruelty from head to toe. It is ironic that instead of using head she uses crown, which is what she is after. She also says ‘Come thick night’ which shows us Shakespeare’s usage of light and dark to symbolise good and evil because she uses it to call on the forces of darkness i.e. forces of evil. She is more cruel and evil than the three witches.

When Macbeth arrives and tells Lady Macbeth that King Duncan will be coming to stay with them that night Lady Macbeth predicts that King Duncan will never see another day ‘O never Shall sun that morrow see’. This prediction ties up with the fact of the witches because as the witches made predictions Lady Macbeth who, although she is not an actual witch, has the same qualities as the witches and she also has started to make predictions, just like the real witches. She tells Macbeth to ‘look like the innocent flower But be the serpent under’t’, she tells him he has to be more better at deceiving people and at being evil.

Before the speech Lady Macbeth gives in Act 1 Scene 5, Macbeth is resolved not to kill King Duncan but Lady Macbeth manipulates him by playing around with his manliness and bravery ‘Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire’ ‘And live a coward in thine own esteem’. In those quotes Lady Macbeth shows her manipulation techniques by questioning Macbeths bravery she has made Macbeth determined to show her that he is not afraid, although he is afraid what will happen if they fail but Lady Macbeth tells him to keep his nerve and everything will be fine showing us that Lady Macbeth cares about her husband a lot.

Although Macbeth has the final say whether or not to go through with the killing, he loves Lady Macbeth and wants to keep her happy. Lady Macbeth is the dominating individual in the relationship which is shown in her soliloquy in Act 1.

But as the play progresses and King Duncan is killed, there is a reversal of the roles and Macbeth becomes the dominating partner. Lady Macbeth becomes subservient. She becomes a mere shadow of her former self. Ambition also plays a large role in this tragedy. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have high ambitions that drive them.

Lady Macbeth’s ambition drives her to manipulate Macbeth to kill King Duncan. Macbeth’s fierce ambition is present before the witches prophecies. He would never have thought seriously about killing King Duncan without the witches. But the combination of his ambition and the initial prophecies leads him to kill King Duncan.

Macbeth’s ambition continues throughout the play because he wants to have a succession of kings after him. His ambitions are deep inside him and because of this, both the witches and Lady Macbeth are able sway him to evil. So ambition, witches and Lady Macbeth has got him into so much trouble.

Macbeth refused to listen to Banquo when he told him that the witches prophecies might be false, because he was tempted to become king. But the second set of prophecies begin to show their faults and Macbeth starts to blame the witches for deceiving him with half truths. While the witches are not totally responsible for the actions of Macbeth, they are responsible for introducing ideas to Macbeth, which fire up his ambitions and lead to disaster.

The witches were also introduced into the play because during the time William Shakespeare wrote this play King James of England. King James had an encounter with a witch who told him something about the future that came true. Also during that period witches were a sort of phenomenon and everybody believed that it was true. Act 3 Scene 5 was not written by Shakespeare but it was written by someone else because he knew that the witches would keep the Shakespearean audience, especially the groundlings, interested in the play. The witches are introduced at different parts of the play where Shakespeare might have thought that the audience might have been losing concentration so by bringing in the witches he would have regained the interest of the public. It is a sort of strategic literature.