Discuss the importance of the witches in Macbeth and how their role in Macbeth(TM)s downfall can be interpreted dramatically.

Discuss the importance of the witches in “Macbeth” and how their role in Macbeth’s downfall can be interpreted dramatically.

Are the witches supernatural? That is one of the questions I will try to answer throughout this piece of writing. I will look at scenes from the play and from the movie and try to work out whether or not the witches had supernatural powers or whether they were simply three interfering hags who get pleasure from pushing Macbeth to his own self destruction. Some productions have presented them very differently: as grotesque and frightening; comic and ridiculous; young and beautiful; or masked and hideous. What was the reason for Macbeth’s downfall? Did the witches make Macbeth do what he did or did they simply plant the idea in his head that led to it? Macbeth was a mighty and ambitious warrior. The witches “prophecy” leads him to murder Duncan so that he himself can be King – but his conscience afterwards never lets him rest.

Act 1, Scene 1. “A prologue of evil: the witches plan to meet with Macbeth”

A very short scene opens the play. It is long enough to draw people’s attention in but not to satisfy it. We have come in at the end of the witches’ meeting just as they are arranging their next appointment, before their “familiar spirits” call them into the “fog and filthy air”. The mood of the play is set here, but the action is yet to begin. In the film the scene opens on the scene of the battle field and this shows that the witches perhaps have some foresight of what is to come. There is a red sky symbolising danger or the blood that is yet to be shed in battle. They dig a hole in the beach and in it they place a noose, perhaps to signify the ‘Thane of Cawdor’s’ treachery. They place a severed hand in the hole which they place a dagger in. This could be to show Macbeth’s hallucination of the dagger later in the play or to show how Macbeth kills the King with a dagger. They then cover the hole and pour some blood on to it., to represent the blood that Macbeth will shed. Finally they spit on it, to illustrate their lack of respect to Macbeth, to show they aren’t feminine and to seal the deal of influencing Macbeth. There are three witches and the oldest one is blind. This could be to reinforce the idea that she has foresight as she does not need normal eye sight. When the witches disappear at the end of the scene it is done with a long shot of them leaving and the fog coming down over them. Did the witches just disappear into air or did they simply just walk away? If the witches did just disappear this reinforces the fact that they are in fact supernatural but Polanski doesn’t give us a clear suggestion that they have vanished, he uses fog coming down to make us wonder if maybe it was simply the fog that covered them.

Act 1, Scene 3. “The Witches speak strange prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo”

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Act 1, Scene 3. “The Witches speak strange prophecies to Macbeth and Banquo”

The witches’ wickedness and magic are shown as they wait for Macbeth on the heath. Macbeth and Banquo are tired after the day’s fighting and grumbling about the weather. Banquo is almost amused by the witches; he cannot bring himself to think of them as women because “your beards forbid me to interpret… That you are so”. This could be because at the time this play was written witches were thought of as being sexless creatures that vaguely took the female form. They could be portrayed like this so the audience themselves would not know for sure if they were supernatural or not. They are said in the play as having beards, thin lips and chapped hands which could be to show us they are neither man nor woman.

Macbeth is stunned by them and goes into a trance like silence as Banquo questions them. When Ross, Angus and Banquo speak together Macbeth speaks his own thoughts aloud in a soliloquy. Shakespeare does this so the audience can see what dark thoughts he is thinking while everyone on the stage is oblivious to what Macbeth is considering. His thoughts are frightening to Macbeth as well as the audience as murder is in his mind. He tries to reject this, declaring he will leave it up to chance “If chance will have me King, why chance may crown me without my stir.”

His thoughts are frightening as at the time the play was written it was thought of as one of the most unnatural things a person could do to kill a king. This ties in with the Divine Right Of Kinship, because the people of the time believed that the king was chosen by God and was his representative on earth. If a king was killed it was thought that the world would be turned upside down (Foul is Fair… what witches were going for?). In history there was a real Kind Duncan and it was said that he was murdered by Macbeth and Banquo together. Shakespeare took this and made his own story about it which was probably another reason why the people of the time found this story quite frightening.

In the film by Polanski the horses start and whinny uncontrollably as they approach the witches. This could be because animals have been thought to be able to sense evil. The youngest witch has her back open in the cold weather to show that the witches aren’t human and aren’t bothered by the elements. When the witches are going away and Macbeth and Banquo follow them the youngest witch pulls up her skirt at them and makes a senseless noise. This shows her asexuality and shows us that she doesn’t consider herself feminine and how she is uncivilised. Once again in the film the witches vanish by going underground. But this could also just be them walking down into a cave. Again making us wonder if the witches are supernatural or not.

Act 4, Scene 1. “The witches assemble to meet Macbeth, and promise to answer his questions. Their magic apparitions comfort him at first – and then give cause for alarm.”

We now see Macbeth receiving comfort from the three apparitions the witches call up. They appear in symbolic form “an armed head” to represent Macbeths own head. The “bloody child” that comes next is Macduff, who had been ‘untimely ripp’d from his mother’s womb (as he tells Macbeth in Act 5, Scene 7.) And lastly, the royal child with a tree in his hand, is Malcolm, the rightful king of Scotland, who approaches the palace camouflaged with tree branches. This is dramatic irony as the audience knows more about what’s happening than Macbeth does. We understand more what the apparitions mean. Shakespeare does this for us to see that Macbeth isn’t thinking straight and so that we will notice how Macbeth feels invincible now and how this is all in his head.

In the movie it shows Macbeth going back to the witches at night. This could be because he can’t sleep or perhaps it isn’t night at all it’s just dark because the witches signify darkness and evil. “Day is night and night is day.” There is a whole coven of witches, all naked in their natural state. They have rejected the trappings of society including clothes and this also helps them look disgusting and abnormal from the rest of the society. The witches also seem more powerful as there are more of them. The witches are all laughing as if they are mocking Macbeth. Is this because they are playing him and tricking him into doing all these things or simply because they are crazy and have no idea what they are doing? Also everyone in the hallucinations is also laughing at Macbeth could this be because Macbeth is paranoid or because the witches are doing this to mock him further?

When the witches offer Macbeth a vile drink he accepts with no hesitation showing us that he trusts them probably because their “prophecies” came true last time. But this also raises the question did the witches really conjure up the visions or was there something in the drink that made Macbeth hallucinate? How then did the visions predict that the only person that would kill Macbeth wouldn’t be born of a woman? Or maybe the only reason the prophecy came true was because, when Macbeth found out Macduff wasn’t born of a woman he lost confidence in himself and sabotaged his own chance at prevailing? This shows the audience and reader that Macbeth relies on prophecies to stay confident and strong in his ability to triumph over Macduff.

I am still not sure myself whether the witches are supernatural or not. I think that the witches play an important role as they are the whole reason that everything goes bad, they are at the root of everything. Whether or not they did this just to meddle in Macbeth’s life or because they really were just passing on their prophecies I do not know. The film never gives a clear indication as to whether or not they are supernatural as every time the witches disappear off the screen there can be a reasonable explanation for it. I think this is the idea that Polanski was going for as in the play there is a scene with Hecate the “Goddess of the Witches” which he edits out. If this was in the film it would be clear that the witches are obviously supernatural as they have a Goddess.

But the play could also have been written with the intentions of the witches being supernatural as this was a Scottish play about a Scottish king like King James I at the time. King James had a great fear of witches as did most people at the time. They believed witches took the form of animals the most common being a rat with no tail, this could be because of all the rats around London spreading disease.

So was this play relating to King James and his obsessive fear of supernatural witches or was Shakespeare simply just playing

By Kerry Harrison Form 5