We can also see that the weather is associated with the witches, this can be described as sympathetic weather. When we see the witches there is always gloomy, dark weather “Thunder and lightening. Enter three WITCHES” and “Thunder. Enter three WITCHES”. The audience would obviously recognise the change in weather, it would add excitement to the evilness of the parts of the play with the witches in, so adding dramatic impact.
The witches in Macbeth are very important. We see the direct effect the have had on Macbeth after the first meeting. He begins to talk in soliloquy or ‘aside’ this shows he does not want others to hear what he is thinking and so with out realising has began to scheme “[Aside] If chance may have me king, why chance may crown me with out my stir”. We also can see that the witches are important to the actual character Macbeth, he echoes a riddle of theirs as his first line in the play “fair is foul and foul is fair” to “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”. Before we even see Macbeth he is being described as a hero by the captain “For brave Macbeth well he deserved that name”. He is the rewarded with a traitor’s title by Duncan and then he meets the witches, after the meeting with them we see that he is actually changing (for the worse). We can also see this through the break down of Banquo and Macbeth’s friendship. Comparing Banquo and Macbeth is also useful; we can see that the impact of the witches on Macbeth differs to Banquo. Banquo has a reluctance to accept what the witches said “What, can the devil speak true?” compared to Macbeth “Glamis and Thane of Cawdor. The greatest is behind”. Macbeth is not doubting what they said but thinking about what was said, Banquo is not sure whether to accept what they said as true or not (as he recognises their evil) – Macbeth seems to just receive the news as good instead of considering whether or not to trust the stereotyped evil witches.
Throughout the play we can see the witches highlighting key themes in the play. Betrayal - Macbeth his king and country because of the witches. We also see the struggle of good and evil. The witches obviously represent evil; Duncan and others that restore the order to Scotland represent the good. Scene One starts with the Witches, it represents chaos as it is before a battle, has bad weather and three witches are there. Scene two opens with Duncan, order has been restored and the witches are no longer there. We can also see the representation of Duncan and the witches of being good and evil as in many plays that perform Macbeth, Duncan is dressed in white robes obviously representing good (sometimes can appear to be the stereotype of god – long white robes, long white beard and hair etc) and the witches appear mutated, gloomy colours etc representing evil. There is also the battle for Scotland, we see good prevailing over evil in the long term as usual. We see the extent of evil as in those times Scotland and England hated each other but they ally together against Macbeth.
Macbeth was written in a time where witches were believed in and were extremely feared. Therefore the impact of the witches on us is clearly not going to have a large effect on us, as they do not really get brought up too much in our day to day life, but for the Shakespearian audience they would have seen the witches as a very serious idea and therefore the impact on them would be a lot bigger. The importance hasn’t changed of the witches though; they still are the ones that put the idea in Macbeth’s head etc. Overall we can see that the witches are essential to the play.
