Discuss the Role of the Witches in Macbeth.

Gareth David 10B 19/01/02

Discuss the Role of the Witches in Macbeth

Although the witches only appear in Macbeth four times their influence is seen throughout the downfall of Macbeth. Their words control Macbeths actions. They are a sign of evil and by including them Shakespeare shows the audience the evil core of the play. The witches trap Macbeth in their evil way and their seductive words and actions causing Macbeth to embark on his killing spree. The witches words devour Macbeth inside and he gives in after extra taunting by Lady Macbeth who is sometimes referred to as the fourth witch.

The play is opened by the witches, signalling to the audience that there is an evil theme to the play. This is important as in Shakespeare’s time many believed witches had unnatural powers and represented dark forces in the minds of the audience of the time. Shakespeare shows the evilness of the witches in many different ways, an example of this is how there is, as always, thunder and lightening, as the witches meet, which creates a dramatic atmosphere and we see how they use rhyme in their speech –

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair;

Hover through the fog and filthy air.”

This is a typical example of the witches speech. They use rhyme at the end of the line in “fair” and “air”. This is unnatural and creates a sense of mysticism for the audience. This quote also shows how some sentences of theirs do not make sense. Foul and fair are two very contradicting words, however, this quotation refers to them as being alike. “Hovering” was also an unnatural description to use implying flying (which was not humanly possible) or possibly implying spirits (often described as hovering when they were not at rest). This quote is also an example of a chant by the three, describing their perversity.

Macbeth is also spoken of in the first scene implying a connection between him and the evil indicated by the witches’ presence. This is before they even meet Macbeth for the first time that follows in the third scene. The witches also mention “Greymalkin” and “Paddock” which are familiars (both links with the spirit world in the form of a cat and a toad).

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The three witches meet again on the heath where they speak of how a “sailor’s wife” denied one of them “chestnuts”. The witch reacts spitefully causing her husband to be “tempest tossed” as he comes home from the seas, but, we hear of a weakness “like a rat without a tail” which refers to the witches being able to rock the sailor’s ship, but not tip it and kill him. The witches are very powerful but there are limits to this “unnatural” power. Due to this they use people as instruments of evil, in this case Macbeth, to reak havoc across Scotland. The witches say that Macbeth will “sleep”, “neither night or day”, due to the pain, anguish and upset they will cause in his life. They predict what will happen to Macbeth and how he will give in after the sleepless nights. Sleep, or lack of it is a recurring theme in the play.

After this, Macbeth and Banquo enter the scene and meet these women who are “so withered and so wild in their attire”. Banquo speaks of how they do not look like “inhabitants o’th’ earth”, and then asks whether they are women at all as they have “beards” which is unnatural. There next words indirectly cause the beginnings of Macbeth’s killing spree. In predicting that he shall be “Thane of Cawdor” and “shalt be king hereafter”, the witches fire his ambition to be king. When later in this scene he discovers that the first prediction is indeed true, he begins to believe that he must kill Duncan and fulfil the predictions of the witches.

The witches then reveal to Banquo that he will be lesser but greater than Macbeth, “not so happy, but much happier”. This is a further example of the double meanings. This also caused Macbeth to kill Banquo later in the play saying that he “shalt get kings” but he shall not be king. Macbeth’s reaction to the witches is in contrast to Banquo’s as he immediately asks for more information from this “strange intelligence”, however, his requests are unfulfilled as in yet another supernatural action the witches vanish.

Their predictions ignite Macbeths deep-seated ambition and rush him towards becoming king. At the end of this scene Macbeth speaks for the first time of his thoughts of murdering Duncan. He calls these “fantastical” but it worries him that he has had these dark thoughts, however, he dismisses these by the end of the scene and decides to let fate run its course in this case. Later he believes that the only way he can become King of Scotland is to kill Duncan. However, the witches did not make Macbeth perform his grisly deeds they just fuel his engine.

In the next Scene Macbeth discover Duncan’s choice for an heir and we hear him speak for the first time in a likeness to the witches and begins to speak in rhyme.

“For in my way it lies. Stars hide your fires.

Let not light see my black and deep desires”

This also show the affect the witches have had on him and shows how their predictions are eating away at him and seems to be giving in to his deep-desires to be king.

When Lady Macbeth discovers the prophecies through a letter from Macbeth, she decides that he “shalt be what thou art promised”. However, she fears that he is “too full of the milk of human kindness” to carry it out, and this will stand in his way as he would not likely want to “catch the nearest way”, to become king. She decides that she shall use her influence over him to bring him around to the idea of killing Duncan. She shall “pour” her “spirits in” his “ear”.

Even though Lady Macbeth has not met the witches the affect of their words on her is seen by the immediate and dramatic vow that these prophecies shall come true. She has begun to sound like the witches and seems to be possessed by evil, like the witches. This developes further over the following scenes leading up to Duncans murder. Their influence uncovers a deep longing of Lady Macbeth to become Queen and shows the audience her evil soul, driven by ambition, like Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth decides after finding out that Duncan shall be visiting Macbeth’s castle that “never shall that sun that morrow see”, meaning that Duncan shall be murdered that night. The audience of the time would see a man and woman becoming possessed by evil. This is what the witches had set out to do and Macbeth has become their instrument. Macbeth then continues to be influenced by Lady Macbeth all that night after deciding repeatedly that he shall not murder Duncan, he then gives in to her torment and the “vaulting ambition” that lies within him and kills Duncan during the night.

The witches’ predictions then continue Macbeth’s killing spree by spurring him towards killing Banquo, one of his dearest friends, so that his offspring do not become kings after him. Macbeth arranges for two murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance.

Later in the same Act Banquo is murdered, however, importantly, Fleance escapes and the prophecies may still come true. The escape is reported to Macbeth and this has a very bad affect on his mind. He is in a banquet with many Thanes and Lords and begins even more questioning about the murder of Duncan. Macbeth begins to hallucinate and he sees Banquo in his chair. Like the air-drawn dagger that led Macbeth to Duncan’s chamber, Banquo’s ghost may also have been sent to cause him to behave in this strange manner and raise suspicion. Lady Macbeth dismisses the Lords after many excuses and the rumours begin to circulate of the King’s sanity and of why this has occurred and more join the opinion of him being the murderer of Duncan. The forces begin to grow against the King with Macduff who already showed his thoughts by not attending Macbeth’s coronation.

After the events of the banquet, Macbeth decides to visit the witches in order to find out more about his future. We now see more evidence of the confusion the witches can cause through equivocating. He arrives as the witches are preparing spells and commands them to answer his queries. They conjure up three apparitions for Macbeth. The ingredients used in this spell echo the theme of the play as a whole. An example of one of the ingredients is the blood from a sow, which has eaten her own babies, recalls the violent and unnatural deeds committed by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

The first apparition shows an armed head that warns Macbeth to “beware Macduff, beware the Thane of Fife”. Later on in the play, we discover that this head is Macbeth’s own which has been cut off by Macduff, but Macbeth believes it is Macduff’s, which is a further example of the witches equivocation. The second apparition is a bloody child, which tells Macbeth “that non of woman born” can harm Macbeth, and this makes him feel that he is immortal. This feeling is increased by the third apparition, which says that only when “great Burnham Wood” moves “to High Dunsinane Hill” then shall Macbeth be slain. Later in the play, Malcolm instructs troops to cut branches from Birnam Wood to use as camouflage as they approach Macbeth’s castle.

Macbeth takes action due to the first apparition warning him of Macduff – he takes the decision to kill all of Macduff’s family. This is both evil and pointless, as he does not kill Macduff, who he is warned against. The other apparitions however give a false confidence as the apparitions confuse him. The witches cause his destruction with this. After Macduff’s families death we find that Macduff is already in England and is planning to lead English forces against Macbeth with Malcolm.

It is in Act 5, Scene 5 that Macbeth begins to worry, as it appears that Burnham Wood has begun to move as Malcolm has every soldier using the camouflage of the wood. It is also curious that he, unnaturally, does not seem to mourn for the death of Lady Macbeth. When the English forces breach Macbeth’s defenses Macbeth and Macduff begin their duel, he discovers, tragically late, that Macduff is not “of woman born” and the final prophecy is fulfilled. Macbeth then realises how he has been tricked by “juggling fiends”.

The influence of the witches is seen throughout and the most significant way they affect the play is how they lead to Macbeth’s untimely demise and death. It is because of their equivocation that Macbeth became so confident that he took on a 10,000-man army. It is important, however, that the witches did not tell Macbeth to kill a single person and it was his all-consuming ambition that was the main ingredient of his ultimate death.

Discuss the Role of the Witches in Macbeth.