But this change from good to evil does not happen overnight. It is triggered at the beginning by the witches, who open the play in the most unnatural of ways for a Shakespearian tragedy. The scene is very short, only 12 lines long, and it is unnatural in every way possible. The three witches are supernatural beings: “you should be women, /And yet your beards forbid me to interpret/That you are so,” the weather is unnatural and violent, even the incantatory poetry that Shakespeare gives them is unnatural, as no one else in the play ever speaks in the same way as they do. It is a prologue to the evil events that will occur throughout the play. They have planned out everything and know exactly what will happen when they tell Macbeth that he will be king one day: “There to meet with Macbeth”, “All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter.” Throughout the play, Macbeth tries to control the witches, yet he never can: “Speak, I charge you. Witches vanish”, and he tries the same with the apparitions, and is scolded by the witches: “He knows thy thought: /Hear his speech, but say thou nought.” He does not realize that he cannot control either Fate or such unearthly creatures as the witches. Also throughout the play, the witches treat Macbeth as one of their own, and he does not realise that he finds them only because they want him to: “Something wicked this way comes. /Open locks, /Whoever knocks.” Shakespeare makes this comparison between them in Macbeth’s very first line, by giving him almost the exact same words as he gave the witches: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
The witches are also significant to Shakespeare’s audience because there are three of them. There has always been an ancient superstition that the number three is a magical number, yet most of the Shakespearian audience would immediately associate it with the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In “Macbeth” this has been inverted, as so many other things are. Instead, there is an Infernal Trinity; the three witches or a more elaborate one, made up of the witches, Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth. Still, there could also be an incarnation of the Holy Trinity in “Macbeth”, represented by Macduff, Malcolm, and Banquo.
Macbeth’s progression to evil is chiefly marked out by his soliloquies and the murders that he performs, or orders. He starts as a mighty and noble warrior, killing rebels for his King and country. Then, once his ambition has started to take over, he goes on to kill Duncan, an innocent, defenceless, old man: “Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope/the Lord’s anointed temple”. He puts much thought into this before performing the deed, debating with himself whether to do it or not: “He’s here in double trust/…his host, /Who should against his murderer shut the door/Not bear the knife myself.” And once he has performed the horrific deed, he regrets it bitterly: “Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!” His hesitation however, is not the hesitation of fear, as he has a terrible courage, but of an intimate, buried knowledge between right and wrong. Then he goes on to kill Banquo, though not personally. He gives less thought to this deed: “There is none but he/Whose being I do fear;” and he does not regret the deed at all, yet is petrified of Banquo’s ghost at the coronation banquet. Banquo, when he is killed, knows what has transpired: “I fear, /Thou play’dst most foully for ‘t.” He knows how Macbeth became king and that he killed Duncan, and also knows that he is behind his own murder: “O treachery!” Macbeth finally orders the murders of Lady Macduff and her children: “give to the edge of the sword/His wife, his babes”. While killing men was considered a great crime, killing a woman and her children was considered a much worse crime. This is done without second thought and never regrets it at all; he never mentions it to himself after it has occurred: “The very firstlings of my heart shall be/The firstlings of my hand.”
As he becomes increasingly evil, so Scotland becomes increasingly unnatural. This is most obviously shown when Banquo dies to save Fleance, a parent sacrificing himself for his child’s life, which is natural: “Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!” Later in the play however, it is clear that Scotland has become more unnatural as the Son dies in an attempt to save Lady Macduff, a child sacrificing himself for his parent’s life: “He has kill’d me, mother: /Run away; I pray you!” This is unnatural and fails, as both Lady Macduff and her Son die.
Finally, another sign of Macbeth’s descent to evil is that he becomes more and more secluded. This is mainly shown by the increasing amount of soliloquies that Shakespeare gives him, but is also shown by his relationship with Lady Macbeth. At the beginning of the play they are a happy couple, who love each other intensely: “my dearest partner of greatness,” yet as the play progresses, especially after Duncan’s murder, Macbeth separates himself from his wife, and once he is king, she must ask to see him: “Say to the king, I would attend his leisure”. All Macbeth’s deeds are consequently thought out by himself, unlike the murder of Duncan, in which Lady Macbeth did most of the thinking and planning: “Leave all the rest to me”, and Macbeth keeps Lady Macbeth out of the murder of Banquo even when she asks him what he is planning: “Be innocent of the knowledge…/Till thou applaud the deed.”
All of these points show how Macbeth becomes increasingly evil throughout the play, eventually becoming a much feared villain, or a tragic hero.
