In the opening scene the weather is thunder and lightning which is a mirror image of the way the witches are perceived. When you think of thunder and lightning you think of evil and destruction, this is exactly the way witches are represented in this play. They are evil and cause destruction in Macbeth’s life.
Banquo says in act 1 scene 3 line 124:
"The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betrays in deepest consequence." He thinks and says bad things of the witches. He calls them instruments of darkness and the devil. He believes that these prophecies will only bring harm even before anything begins to happen. He sees beyond the witches and can see that they are evil where as Macbeth is taken in by the witches and this 'blindness´ is what causes his downhill spiral of problems. So his best friend warns Macbeth before he makes any decisions that the witches are evil, and what they suggest is evil. If Macbeth had listened to his friend Banquo then perhaps the tragic events to follow could have been stopped.
But the witches who could supposedly foretell the future, add temptation, and influence Macbeth. They had told Macbeth that he would be King he became impatient and tried to hurry it as quickly as he could. But they cannot control his destiny. Macbeth creates his own misery when he is driven by his own sense of guilt. This causes him to become insecure as to the reasons for his actions, which in turn causes him to commit more murders. The witches offer great enticement, but it is in the end, each individual’s decision to fall for the temptation, or to be strong enough to resist their captivation. The three Witches are only responsible for the introduction of these ideas and for further forming ideas in Macbeth head, but they are not responsible for his actions throughout the play.
The witches in Macbeth are typical of seventeenth century witches. They have supernatural powers, they can predict the future e.g. Predicting when the battle of Cawdor will end, they can turn into things e.g. Rats, they can hover, they can change the weather e.g. I'll give thee a wind, they can stop people sleeping. The witches all chant and speak in rhyme and riddle, which is a traditional feature of a seventeenth century real witch. There are three witches. The witches as well as being typical of real witches in the seventeenth century are also disorderly and chaotic like dreams, they both do not keep to spatial reality or time, there are both blurry you never seem to see the full picture, they both show some connection to real life because the witches seem to show what Macbeth desires are and how he can get the, just like a fantasy dream might show what we want and desire. What Macbeth wants is more power and more power for him is to become the king and the witches just like our dreams would present us with what it would be like but the witches go further than dreams and tell him how he could obtain his desires. Both dreams and the witches are unrealistic; they do not conform to an ordinary structure.
Macbeth lived in a society where people believed in a divine order which was decided by God. Anything unnatural was against this order. Kings were God’s agents, so action against a king was an action against God. Satan had rebelled against God directly, and he was responsible, through witches and evil spirits, for all attacks on the divine order. Macbeth’s society also honoured bravery. Men were warriors, the better warrior they were the better chance they had of being promoted in the assemblage. Macbeth was a great warrior and his value on the battlefield so he was given more power. Loyalty to the king and country was an immensely important value to a person in Macbeth’s society.
In Macbeth’s society, a Woman is supposed to be attractive, passive and a good mother. The witches on the other hand are the total opposite; they reflect a difference to Macbeth’s society. The witches are on the outskirts of society upon the heath. They appear on the margins. They are associated with disorder in nature; they meet in desolate spaces where the nature is at its most powerful. The witches are rebellious. They think up plans and plot things. The witches raise thought of rebellion in Macbeth. Both the witches and Macbeths society are essentially evil they are both based on bloodshed and violence, and Macbeth simply takes this evil to an extreme. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth consequence of ultimately following their desire ends up meaning both of them will die. Maybe William Shakespeare uses the witches to send a message over to us the interpreter that we should not follow our desires and we should repress them because no good can come of them.
As going to the theatre was a common form of entertainment in Elizabethan times, the scene of the witches would have to be very dramatic to shock the audience. The Elizabethan theatre in Shakespearian times was outside, not in a building as it is now. Plays were performed during the day because of a lack of artificial lighting. The atmosphere was very casual, not like today. It is easily compared to a football match as the audience shouted and talked constantly throughout the play. So the actresses playing the witches would have had to be very expressive, loud and over exaggerated to be heard and to capture the audiences attention. Today we have a different prospect of witches. We do not see them as a threat to us in this modern society but as something out of a fairy tale. The audience today would not feel as threatened as the people who first saw the scene performed in 1606 because witches aren’t talked about and feared as they were back then. Instead in modern theatres we use lighting and sound effects to try and enhance the audiences fear.
Another function of the witches in Macbeth is as an embarrassment they wander into this otherwise serious play and mutter mumbo-jumbo about toads and liver. They are like an uninvited guest who keeps on reappearing. I believe that if we took the witches out of Macbeth it would make no sense as they bring everything together. The witches have a clearer idea of what is going on than anyone else does. They are closer to the audience’s point of view than anyone else in the play. They are practically the narrators. I conclude that the witches main function in Macbeth is to make comparison between Macbeths conscious, real world and Macbeths unconscious, dream world. However, they serve many other functions, which would be absurd to overlook if you wanted to see the full picture of why the witches are in Macbeth.
