The witches, as I said before, are not main characters but they are crucial, and in the set scene I.III they are put across as obsessive, excessive and very touchy; for example they kill a sailor’s wife because she didn’t give one of them a chestnut. They unite against the sailor’s wife, and each donates a wind to add to the storm they’re going to brew up: but they still do things individually, because when they meet up they ask what the others have been doing. One has been sacrificing animals, or "killing swine", presumably for some kind of evil ritual or spell; the second has been talking to the sailor’s wife, but the third doesn’t mention where she’s been, and she’s not so much of an important character, and she may only be there to create a more evil and traditional image in your mind of there being three of them. They occasionally mention the head witch, Hecate, and she appears in the scene III.V, as she is angry about their talking to Macbeth without her being there. She accuses them of telling people things that they shouldn’t concern themselves with, and says "Saucy, and overbold, how did you dare/ To trade, and traffic with Macbeth?" This gives the impression that things that people initially conceive as a higher power, witches, also have a higher power, and maybe Hecate has a higher power too – this shows that nothing is the highest, there is a natural order of things that never ends.
Witches became increasingly persecuted in the 16th or 17th century to act as a scapegoat for crops failing and death etc. At first they were slightly unreal and not very close to the home, but then people started accusing others just because of a grudge and other petty reasons. The most suspicious people were old women who lived alone or with a cat, and gradually cats were seen as evil too, and as messengers from the Devil. They were originally perceived to be mysterious, terrible creatures with strong powers, and as the myths and folklore around them grew, their powers grew and fear around them grew. When they were "caught", they were subjected to horrible tortures until they "confessed"; sometimes the accused believed they were a witch, but often they wanted the torture to end. After the torture, they were put on trial and burned to death or hung. The witches in Macbeth don’t seem to worry about people being after them, they don’t really seem to have anything to do with their time and they could easily get away from the humans if they wanted to. However, these days witches are perceived as harmless teenagers, and their powers seem much more useful than intimidating. People don’t really believe in them any more, but many are certain there is some kind of higher power. Some find this in religion, others in everyday things or people: some people need it for hope, but others think it’s completely ridiculous and would rather believe they are in control of their own life. This links in with the theme of fate which runs all the way through the play.
Lady Macbeth is a character who in some ways is more evil than the witches, because she is more manipulative, persuasive and cunning without people realising her true intentions. She uses many persuasive techniques in her speech to convince her husband to kill the King, and successfully manipulates him into seeing her point of view and doing what she wants.
Macbeth is the most manipulated character in the play, because he ends up doing a lot of things he doesn’t want to do before he even notices. He is manipulated by the witches, by his wife, and most of all buy his own fear: and these factors jointly force him to do "bad" things, for example kill Duncan. In a way this means that the witches and Lady Macbeth are pure evil because the things they make Macbeth do are pure evil, but pure evil in my opinion would be more varied, i.e. force him to do more than kill, and turn Macbeth more sly, cunning and power-hungry. The witches & Lady Macbeth do make Macbeth these things, but in my view there is still something missing to make them pure evil. Lady Macbeth is the more evil, because she is closer to home being his wife, so she is more secretly evil and two-faced. The witches are just more random, because although they start off the whole thing you could argue that in the play it never says how they meant for him to use that knowledge. The witches are more mysteriously evil and scary because they are the most unknown-seeming characters, with no pretensions of who they are or what they do and why. The only reason for you having initial judgment of them is because schemy people like Lady Macbeth make you think they are bad.
Macbeth changes the most during the course of the play, not only his personality but also his instincts, relationships with others ad his sanity. He changes because of many factors, mainly Fear, Guilt, Power and the influence of the evil characters.
Overall, I think that Shakespeare did believe in pure evil and a higher power, and communicated this through the play in the characters Lady Macbeth and the witches, but I don’t agree with his portrayal of pure evil because as I said before, there seems to be something missing.
