In Act 1 Scene 4, Macbeth is being kind to Duncan showing his duplicity ‘safe toward your love and honour and hearing of my wife with your approach; so humbly take my leave’ he seems to be unabashed, taking no embarrassment at both talking to the king and planning to murder him. Macbeth refers to the stars ‘stars hide your fires! Let not light see my black and dark desires’ he does not want the good things to see the evil part of him. Macbeth then speaks about the supernatural ‘the eye wink at the hands yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done to see!’ this means that the all seeing eye of the witches encourages him to murder Duncan as the eye fears Duncan and when he is dead the eye will see.
It is clear to the audience that Lady Macbeth’s ambition to become queen is now at a greater level, she believes Macbeth is too kind to get rid of obstacles in his path to royalty she wants to defeminise herself she says ‘unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of direct cruelty.’ She sees Macbeth as a weak man Lady Macbeth decides to persuade Macbeth to kill Duncan ‘[pour my spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valour of my tongue’ Lady Macbeth is telling us that she will instruct Macbeth on how to carry out the killing of Duncan ‘the raven himself is hoarse is an image of evil as is dunnest smoke of hell’ these images cast an evil light on Lady Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth plans the murder and persuades Macbeth by praising him ‘Great glamis! Worthy cawdor! Greater than both, by the hail hereafter’ this shows us that Lady Macbeth is forcing Macbeth into a feeling of false security previous to the time she succeeds in persuading him to commit the murder she says to him ‘look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t
Macbeth shows himself as a weak man in front of his wife letting her plan the murder. Lady Macbeth tells him to keep his mind clear and to let her take charge of the plotting of the murder. ‘To alter favour ever is to fear leave all the rest to me.’
The witches and the supernatural play a major part in the play Macbeth. The witches’ presence at the beginning of the play Macbeth tells the audience that something mysterious will happen.
If the witches were not in the play Macbeth would not have even considered killing Duncan, as the witches’ prophecy is the biggest influence over Macbeth. If the witches weren’t in the play the atmosphere would be different, Macbeth may not have felt compelled and Malcolm may have become king, Macbeth may have become king or maybe neither of them would have become king. The witches were the influence of a lot of events
The witches appear evil, as they have been the influence of several deaths. They caused Duncan’s death with the prophecy, they also come across as evil because of the things they do e.g. in their chants they create evil images “liver of a blaspheming Jew!” “Here I have a pilots thumb, wreck’d as homeward he did come!” The witches killed the pilot because his wife wouldn’t give them chestnuts.
The witches chant ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ they are telling the audience that appearances are deceiving. This we see to be true throughout the play as when Macbeth is first introduced to us by Duncan he is cast as being ‘a brave war hero’ but as the play develops we learn that he is taken in by evil and his ambition.
The witches do not tell Macbeth the whole truth, as they are trying to confuse him. The witches leave before Macbeth finds out the truth “stay you imperfect speakers tell me more by sinels death I know I am Thane of Glamis but how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives.” At this point they do not tell Macbeth that it is Macduff who kills him he is only aware that he will become king.
Banquo is more suspicious of the witches and feels they might not be all the seem as he believes they are insane to believe it “were such things here as we do speak or have we eaten on the insane root, that takes the reason prisoner.” Banquo is also suspicious as the prophecies do come true “what can the devil speak true?” this refers to Elizabethan times when witches were thought to be dangerous and servants of Satan. These witches are evil. Macbeth seems to be hypnotised by what the witches tell him Banquo says “look how our partners rapt” which means amazed lost in his own thoughts. When Banquo dies (Macbeth kills him) Macbeth goes back to the witches demanding answers “tell me thou unknown power.” This means he wants to know what will happen and about their unknown powers.
In conclusion it is clear that there are many possible reasons why Macbeth behaved in the way he did: he obviously had an ambition to become king, Lady Macbeth pushed him so far that he finally had to admit his desire to be king. As soon as he realises this he feels obliged to carry out Duncan’s murder, to fulfil the witches’ prophecy, to fulfil his own ambition to become king and to fulfil Lady Macbeth’s ambition to become Queen. Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth he can have more power over everyone else to encourage him even more. The witches put the prophecies into Macbeth’s head and after the first one comes true, Macbeth realises that to fulfil his ambition he must commit murder and place the blame on Malcolm, to ensure that Malcolm would be unable to become king. Macbeth is power driven and will not stop trying to gain more power it is because of this that he is eventually killed. Without the witches Macbeth probably wouldn’t have had the final push to fulfil his ambition.
By
Amy Jones
