On line 10 the witches’ together repeat ‘ Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.’ The thoughts that will toil and trouble immediately come to mind. There is tension and fascination. The double ‘ d ’ makes a hard sound, which is effective because it reminds us of ‘ death ’ and ‘ Duncan’. Having all three witches say this at the same time creates tension because there are various ways of saying it, and you can experiment these lines through having all three speak.
However each of these ways will have equal effect on the audience. Elsewhere in the scene there has been repetition of the word trouble. This indicates to us trouble may be on the way. The words ‘ fire burn ’ makes us think that Macbeth will be damned in hell for what he has done. This is another example of how Shakespeare uses language to create dramatic interest.
On line 44 before Shakespeare writes the stage direction ‘ music and a song, black spirits ’. Hecate and the other three witches leave. Shakespeare uses the music and song to create suspense and tension. Depending on the effects, however both the music and song leave the audience wondering as to what may happen next. This aspect of staging creates dramatic interest because the witches are leaving, so the audience begin to ask who will come on stage next, Macbeth is alone on stage and we wait with anticipation what he will do and say.
On line 46 Macbeth enters and calls the witches ‘ Midnight Hags! ’ He exclaims it, this shows the audience is carefree; he doesn’t care what the witches think even though they have more power. He is sarcastic and rude. The audience will question why he is not being cautious and fear the consequences.
On line 61, the first witch asks Macbeth if he wants to hear what they have to say, either from themselves or their ‘ masters ‘, this creates excitement amongst the audience because we have not yet met the ‘masters’. This leads on to create dramatic interest because we are in suspense, we do not know what the masters will be like nor do we know who they are, because they have not been mentioned in the past neither have we met them previously in the play. When the audience hear that Macbeth agrees to meet with the witches ‘ masters ’ our excitement grows along with suspense. We, at this point, are also feeling slightly worried for Macbeth as he does not yet know what he has let himself in for. It might not be the right decision, one that he might later regret. He may be in danger because he does not know what will happen next. This creates mixed feelings amongst the audience.
When the first apparition enters it is an‘ armed head ’.
This is an unusual sight and creates tension amongst the audience, because we in some way feel inferior to it, knowing it has powers. After hearing what the first apparition has to say, Macbeth is not entirely satisfied. The apparition tells Macbeth to beware of Macduff, and this is all the first apparition has to say, but this does not fulfil Macbeth’s wishes nor does it praise him or tell him something good that may happen to him in the future.
Macbeth goes on to listen to the second apparition, this time it is a ‘ bloody child ’ and the third apparition is a ‘ child crowned with a tree in his hand.’ In both the second and third apparition the words ‘ Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth ’ are repeated and perhaps this is done to make reference to Macbeth’s three titles. The thane of Glamis, thane of Cawdor and king. This may be done to show how powerful Macbeth is and how high is status is, the apparition is praising him which is what Macbeth wants. The language used in the apparitions creates suspense. The first warns Macbeth to beware of Macduff; the second tells him that ‘none of woman born’ can harm him, and the third seems to promise that Macbeth will not be defeated. Before each apparition Shakespeare has given the direction of a roll of thunder, this again is done to create suspense. It makes it a mystery as to who will follow.
The apparitions lead us to remember previous acts in the play for example the death of Duncan. Before Macbeth is fully satisfied and is able to finish what he is saying, each apparition ‘descends’ which is leaving at a cliffhanger, and this creates dramatic interest.
We can see throughout the play that Macbeth’s character has changed but this is revealed to us heavily in Act 4 scene. Shakespeare has cleverly incorporated something that is popular at that time into his play to make it more interesting and create dramatic interest, and this is exactly what the witches do. Without the language and stage directions in this scene, it would not have been as dramatically interesting. This scene links to previous parts of the play, which adds to the effect, because all in all it draws our minds back to when Macbeth killed Duncan at the beginning of the play.