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Macbeth - Act 3, scene 5

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Act 3, scene 5.

The presentation of the witches in this scene (as in 4.1.38 SD–43 and 141–48) differs from their presentation in the rest of the play. Most editors and scholars believe that neither this scene nor the passages in 4.1 were written by Shakespeare.

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The history of the witches in Macbeth

  Hovering through the fog and filthy air of Macbeth, the weird sisters are a terrifying chorus to the action of the play

Head of Research

by Dr Will Tosh

4 minute read

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Magic and devilry were on people’s minds in 1606, the year Macbeth was first performed. England’s new Scottish king James was known to his subjects as a committed opponent of witchcraft and a scholar of black magic. And less than two years after James’s succession, and perhaps six months before Shakespeare started writing Macbeth , the country was profoundly shaken by the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot, the failed attempt by a group of English Catholic dissidents to assassinate the king and all the members of parliament in a huge explosion. Preachers were quick to detect demonic encouragement behind the plot.

Macbeth , Act I, scene 1 in the Munro First Folio.

The dread of supernatural horror hangs over Macbeth , and Shakespeare was very aware that his play would be taken as a comment on the Scottish king’s escape from devilish treason (it’s even been suggested that the smell of the sulphurous gunpowder used at the Globe to simulate lightning flashes would have reminded the audience of their monarch’s near miss).

But if the witches are the central focus for this atmosphere of terror, Shakespeare never lets his characters refer to the prophetic threesome as ‘witches’, although they’re termed as such in the speech prefixes and stage directions. For Macbeth and Banquo, the two characters who encounter them, they are ‘weïrd women’ or ‘weïrd sisters’, that unfamiliar umlaut indicating how early modern people said this ancient word (with two distinct syllables). In fact, in the First Folio, the earliest surviving text of Macbeth , the word is variously spelled ‘wayward’, ‘weyward’ and ‘weyard’, all of which would have been pronounced the same way in 1606: ‘WAY-rrd’.

Billy Boyd, Cat Simmons, Moyo Akandé and Jess Murphy as Banquo and the witches in Macbeth , 2013. Photographer: Ellie Kurtz

Shakespeare took this unusual word from his main source for Macbeth , Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland , in which the historical ‘Makbeth’ and ‘Banquho’ encounter ‘the weird sisters’, as Holinshed describes them, ‘goddesses of destiny, or else some nymphs or fairies, endowed with knowledge of prophecy’. In the play, the witches’ primary role is the provision of ambiguous fortunes which stir the ambitious Macbeth to action despite the fact that the details of his promised fate are decidedly sketchy (when will he be ‘king hereafter’? By what means? For how long?).

By the Renaissance, the word had lost its folkloric association but retained the broad meaning of ‘destiny’

So one interpretation of the weïrd women is less as traditional witches and more as potent prophets. In 11th century England and Scotland, a person’s fortune was determined by the workings of wyrd, a mysterious force that was both unavoidable and inexplicable. By the Renaissance, the word (now spelled ‘weird’) had lost its folkloric association but retained the broad meaning of ‘destiny’. Also in play in early modern England was the classical notion of feminised ‘Fates’, goddesses like the Morai of ancient Greece who dictated the scope of a person’s life.

Kirsty Rider in Macbeth , 2018. Photographer: Johan Persson

Early modern audiences would have heard another meaning in ‘weïrd’, too, as the First Folio spellings suggest. To them, the word sounded the same as ‘wayward’, an insulting term meaning ‘disobedient’ or ‘perverse’. ‘Wayward’ was frequently applied to women who were perceived to be outspoken or quarrelsome (cardinal sins according to the misogynistic theories of Shakespeare’s England). Women who asserted their wisdom and knowledge might well find themselves castigated as ‘wayward’, and if they were vulnerable and unlucky that ‘waywardness’ might be interpreted more darkly as sorcery or witchcraft.

Moyo Akandé, Cat Simmons and Jess Murphy as the witches in Macbeth , 2013. Photographer: Ellie Kurtz

Which bring us back to the weïrd sisters. Their ‘weirdness’ was, from Shakespeare’s perspective, both ‘wyrd’ and ‘wayward’, powerful and marginal. For Shakespeare’s first audience, they were figures who represented England’s ancient past and the mysterious magic of prophecy. But the ‘withered’ and ‘wild’ sisters were also examples of what was becoming a familiar stereotype in an England newly attuned to the ‘risks’ of sorcery: poor, disregarded and insulted old women whose wisdom, if acknowledged at all, could be understood only as witchcraft.

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Three Witches, Macbeth

The three witches are characters in Macbeth .

Macbeth begins with what is possibly the most theatrical opening stage direction of any play: Thunder and lightning, Enter three witches.

That sets the tone for the play, which is shrouded in darkness, fog, ‘filthy air’ and general foul weather. The language of the text is saturated with the kind of images that create that world. The witches – supernatural phenomena in this play – pervade the play with their presence, that hangs like a toxic cloud over the play.

Macbeth’s three witches as seen on stage

The weird sisters are a wonderful Shakespearean invention. They appear on the stage as characters and are played by actors, but they are not people. Shakespeare distances them from the people in the play by the way they use language. The human characters speak in Shakespeare’s usual mode of blank verse in iambic pentameter , whereas he gives the witches a strange, eerie incantatory verse in rhyming couplets. Their dialogue creates a mesmeric effect on the audience.

Moreover, although their intervention in Macbeth’s life is the most powerful dramatic device in the play, they do not participate with the human characters in the development of the drama. At the same time, there is the question as to whether they exist at all or are more like a personification of his ambition to become king, causing him to have the idea that he can if he can bring himself to kill the king.

So it would be pointless to try a character sketch of the witches. All one can say is that they appear on the stage as the source of evil – the kind of evil that can enter the soul of a good man, attack him at his most vulnerable point and produce the kind of chaos that leads to violence, murder, and war. Macbeth’s most vulnerable point is his ambition. They do not have human characteristics: they are more like machines programmed to create confusion and destruction.

Early in the play we see the witches talking about the evil things they have just done to human beings and we hear that they are now going to attack this very good man, favourite of the king, and national hero. And they do that. They approach him and tell him things about his immediate future – things that turn out to be true, which makes them believable – and they tell him that he will be king one day.

That plants the idea in Macbeth’s mind. They know that it’s already there, beneath the surface: all they are doing is bringing it to the surface, knowing that he will take the bait. They know that his weak point is his over-reaching ambition. From that moment on it is a decline from the height of heroism to the lower depths of villainy with the destruction of Macbeth’s very soul.

Top Three Witches Quotes

“When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

“Fair is foul and foul is fair Hover through the fog and filthy air.”

“I will drain him dry as hay: Sleep shall neither night nor day Hang upon his pent-house lid; He shall live a man forbid: Weary se’nnights nine times nine Shall he dwindle, peak and pine: Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost.”

“All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!”

“FIRST WITCH: Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d. SECOND WITCH: Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined. THIRD WITCH: Harpier cries ‘Tis time, ’tis time. FIRST WITCH: Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. ALL: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH: Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. THIRD WITCH: Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. ALL: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH: Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.”

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I would know these sisters three, for with their thoughts I must agree. Yet, ‘greements seem be quite hard, even with the noble Bard. Thus I strain and give me pause, whilst I do sharp’st my claws. Fair may be foul and fair may be fair, But need’st I breathe some cool fresh air! Thus my hurley burley ends and bid farewell to noble friends. (Sorry, but I couldn’t resist!)

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Why the 'Macbeth' Witches Are Key to Shakespeare's Play

Their prophecies fuel Macbeth's thirst for power

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"Macbeth" is known to be a story about the desire for power of the protagonist and his wife, but there's a trio of characters that shouldn't be left out: the witches. Without the "Macbeth" witches, there would simply be no story to tell, as they move the plot.

The Five Prophesies of the 'Macbeth' Witches

During the play, the "Macbeth" witches make five key prophesies:

• Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor—and eventually King of Scotland.
• Banquo’s children will become kings.
• Macbeth should “beware Macduff.”
• Macbeth cannot be harmed by anyone “of woman born.”
• Macbeth cannot be beaten until “Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane shall come.”

Four of these predictions are realized during the course of the play, but one is not. We do not see Banquo’s children become kings; however, the real King James I was thought to be descended from Banquo, so there could still be truth to the "Macbeth" witches' prophesy.

Although the three witches appear to have great skill at prophesying, it's not certain if their prophecies really are preordained. If not, do they simply encourage Macbeth to actively construct his own fate? After all, it seems to be part of Macbeth’s character to shape his life according to the predictions (whereas Banquo does not). This might explain why the only prophecy not realized by the end of the play relates directly to Banquo and cannot be shaped by Macbeth (although Macbeth would also have little control over the “Great Birnam Wood” prophecy).

The 'Macbeth' Witches' Influence

The witches in "Macbeth" are important because they provide Macbeth’s primary call to action. The witches' prophesies also affect Lady Macbeth, albeit indirectly when Macbeth writes his wife about seeing the "weird sisters," as he calls them. After reading his letter, she's immediately prepared to plot to murder the king and worries her husband will be too "full o' th' milk of human kindness" to commit such an act. Although Macbeth initially doesn't think he could do such a thing, Lady Macbeth has no question in her mind that they would succeed. Her ambition steels him.

Thus, the witches' influence on Lady Macbeth only increases their effect on Macbeth himself—and, by extension, the entire plot of the play. The "Macbeth" witches provide the dynamism that has made " Macbeth " one of Shakespeare’s most intense plays.

How the 3 Witches Stand Out

Shakespeare  used a number of devices to create a sense of otherness and malevolence for the "Macbeth" witches. For example, the witches speak in rhyming couplets, which distinguishes them from all other characters; this poetic device has made their lines among the play's most memorable: "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."

Also, the "Macbeth" witches are said to have beards, making them difficult to identify as either gender. Last, they are always accompanied by storms and bad weather. Collectively, these traits make them appear otherworldly.

The Witches' Question for Us

By giving the "Macbeth" witches their plot-pushing role in the play, Shakespeare is asking an age-old question: Are our lives already mapped out for us, or do we have a hand in what happens?

At the end of the play, the audience is forced to consider the extent to which the characters have control over their own lives. The debate over free will versus God's preordained plan for humanity has been debated for centuries and continues to be debated today.

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How are The Witches presented in Macbeth? Grade 9 analysis

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Assessment and revision

Last updated

8 March 2021

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This is a Grade 9 analysis of Shakespeare’s presentation of the Three Witches in Macbeth written for the AQA GCSE English Literature specification.

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Examine the presentation of the witches in Macbeth.

Examine the presentation of the witches in Macbeth

Macbeth is one of the better-known plays written by Shakespeare, where the audience are drawn to sympathise with a cold-blooded murderer.  Convinced by his wife and the witches’ prophecies, that he shall become King, Macbeth’s fatal ambition results in his downfall.  

Macbeth was written during a period where many women were tried for witchcraft, and they were subsequently executed.  As well as this, women were persecuted and misogyny was an accepted issue of every day life.  Many Elizabethans believed, that witches controlled almost every aspect of their existence, they were able to predict the future and change the weather Shakespeare took this as his back ground and displays them in Macbeth, making the play very much a product of the time, however, the play still enjoys the same reactions today because of Shakespeare’s use of imagery and themes of which blood and guilt appear frequently.  This allows the modern day audience to find relevance with it, despite the play’s age.

Earlier audiences would describe Macbeth and his Lady as seized by demonic possession.

Amen/ stuck in my throat.

(Act 2 scene 2)

Macbeth’s inability to pray shows that he has been ensnared by evil.

Come, you spirits

(Act 1 scene 5)

Here lady Macbeth’s inviting of evil spirits to possess her would also be seen to be abnormal, even in today’s society.  She is inviting the consequences of believing in the witch’s prophecies. In some ways you could see lady Macbeth as the one who began the plot she was quite able to employ the witches to capture Macbeth, this may explain why she persuaded Macbeth to kill Duncan, the king and why Hecate was so annoyed with the witches for helping lady Macbeth and Macbeth fulfil their dreams. Hecate finds in the end that they both were to lose everything and Hecate honours the witches for their evil practices.

When Christianity developed witches began to be associated with the devil, people accepted this as it fell inline with their beliefs.  Further on in the play Lady Macbeth seems to describe the devil’s mark.  As the spot symbolises the area where the devil is said to have taken blood.

Out dammed spot!  Out I say!

(Act 5 scene 1)

This is a preview of the whole essay

Nowadays filmmakers rely on powerful imagery to make the same threatening statements, to induce the same reaction.   The witches’ prophecies bear resemblance to astrology or tarot cards today.  Some people find they have stereotypical beliefs that therefore make the play have some significance that, subconsciously, they cannot escape from. This helps to portray the play as it was recognized in Elizabethan times, as Shakespeare was able to use the belief in and the fear of witches at the time.   What Shakespeare did was physically display the audiences’ fear.  In the eyes of a modern audience the witches are not seen as threatening, which they do need to be.

At this present time audiences would be ready to diagnose both Macbeth and lady Macbeth as needing psychiatric help, given that they are both hallucinating.  Depending on how you see Macbeth, you may feel that Macbeth is of stable mind and he is captured by evil over which he has no control.

 Is this a dagger which I see before me,

(Act 2 scene 1)

Although some scenes have incorporated a sword like object into the scenery, in the form of a shadows cross for instance, some performances used this scene to show the mental instability of Macbeth.  

A dagger of the mind, a false creation, (imaginary) Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

The physical appearance of the witches is disputed and they are portrayed in diverse ways; other productions have tried to display the witches with more normality, from young women to even children, but you will never drift from the stereotypical hags, which the text seems to be intended for.

Banquo, Macbeth’s compatriot, has a fascination for these “weird sisters”

That look not like the inhabitants o’ th’ earth, And yet are on’t?

(Act 3 scene 5)

He speaks with confusion and questions his words.  He believes that they are women but the fact that they have beards contradicts this belief.  This emphasizes the disruption of nature; there are evil happenings that are not controllable.  Their appearance is “So withered and so wild”.  We imagine the witches to be old and withered like the heath, where they sit hunched, weather beaten in the cold; a bleak picture comes to mind.  He describes the witches as “things that sound so fair.” From the use of antithesis or opposites this phrase is contradicted.  

Fair is foul and foul is fair.

(Act 1 scene 1)

 This changing of words singles the witches out from the other characters.

We may see the witches as young attractive women, who have maybe be chosen to live without men and therefore isolated from normal community. This is where the fair is foul phrase would involve the witches themselves creating a sense that there appearance is a disguise and in effect the beards and wild exterior hides their fairness so foul is fair, this could explain Banquo’s confusion at the beginning of the scene.  

Banquo goes on to describe them as “fantastical” (imaginary) he feels his logic has been taken away, he is so perplexed he feels that he is hallucinating.

Have we eaten on the insane root,

(Act 1 scene 3)

Shakespeare creates an eerie atmosphere when the witches enter they are clouded by mist and are shrouded by thunder. I imagine them to talk quietly under the thunder and the mist gives a sense of mystery.  The audience begin to associate the coming of the witches with these intimidating devices and they create a degree of suspense.  The scenes before and after the witch scenes are also important in creating the right ambience. Shakespeare may use the change of scene to isolate the witches or to enhance the similarities between them and characters like Macbeth.  The first time we see the witches we go from a desolate heath to an army camp.  The use of antithesis spoken by Duncan echoes what the witches have said in the previous scene

What he has lost, noble Macbeth has won

(Act 1 scene 2)

When the hurly-burly’s done when the battle lost and won.

(Act 1 scene1)

In the witches eyes this has a very different meaning to what Duncan says.  The witches may mean by the winning of the battle Macbeth has sealed his fate.

Before the appearance of Hecate we are shown that Macbeth has suffering from lack of sleep emphasizing his troubled mind and even hallucinations.

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

 (Lady Macbeth to Macbeth, act 4 scene 3)

The language of the witches denotes their character, the audience are able to distinguish between characters and sense their personality by their words. Macbeth has some similarities, with the witches, in the language that he uses.  He echoes their words using opposites.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Macbeth also uses rhyming couplets in some of his lines, as do the witches in their chants and spells.

Pour in sow’s blood, that hath eaten

Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten

(Act 4 scene1)

To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart

Throbs to know one thing; tell me, if your art

The witches’ language is very distinctive in the spell scenes.  The witches are united, the three of them representing the magical number. They talk in rhyme with a regular rhythm; we could describe this as supernatural.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Shakespeare writes it using a certain amount of syllables to make the text flow; your brain is able to use these syllables to say the lines as intended.  Each line is arranged in rhyming couplets to make it into an incantation, as described before this links Macbeth to the witches giving their language a ritual feel.  The words of the spell have a greater connotation and uses imagery to achieve the desired reaction, from the audience.  Ominous animals are used in the text to create a fearful atmosphere and to play on their destructive tendencies, which are like the witches.

 Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf.

Shakespeare uses familiars in this way to include the Elizabethan belief that witches had evil servants. To an earlier audience this might make the witches more realistic.

Paddock calls

I come Greymalkin

        (Both from act 1 scene1)

The witches are controlled by the animals and not in the customary way of man over animal.

In the apparition spell, towards the end of the play is where the adding of the strange and perverse ingredients occurs

Finger of birth strangled babe

(Act 4 scene 1)

This line illustrates the vulnerability of Macbeth.

Cool it with baboon’s blood

                       (Act 4 scene 1)

The mention of blood at the end of the spell contributes to the atmosphere of murder; it breeds bloody stereotypes of what it is to be a man.

This doesn’t appear viable, as most people would see blood as hot, representing anger.  It may have been put into the text to show contrast between disorder and stability.  This may create pathos in the audience.  Throughout the play the witches speak in riddles the audience are never sure of what their implication is.

Something wicked  this way comes.

This is referring to Macbeth.  They talk in half-truths but unfortunately for Macbeth he only acknowledges the good side and chooses to ignore the warnings

Hail Banquo father of kings

When the witches hail Banquo with this title Macbeth was too preoccupied with what had been said before to realise what this might mean.  Finally the witches’ prediction comes true and Macduff, Banquo’s son prevails king of Scotland after killing Macbeth.   Ironically it was the witches who convinced Macbeth that Macduff was not a threat by stating

no man born of a woman would ever harm Macbeth

tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped

(Act 5 scene 8)

  The witches force Macbeth to turn on his friends as they make him believe they are a threat. Macbeth is being manipulated; the reason that the witches succeed is that they made Macbeth feel that it was his own doing.

The witches are crucial in the play, and without the witches, to bring up the suggestion Macbeth’s ambition he would not have realised it, however with the lack of Lady Macbeth he may not have met the same fate. Lady Macbeth’s ambition, to be queen, was almost as strong as Macbeth’s to be king, therefore giving her the perfect motive to encourage Macbeth. The witches are central to Macbeth’s downfall because everything he did was subject to their predictions.  His death was the result of his belief in the witches’ use of equivocation that no man born of a woman would hurt him, among others. Overall I feel that the witches represent the part of Macbeth that he did not see until the suggestion of his power was foretold.  The witches are a portrayal of Macbeth’s evil within him.

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The role and presentation of the witches in Macbeth

Analyse the role and presentation of the witches in Macbeth with reference to Shakespeare’s use of language, his historical and contemporary influences and the themes addressed by the play.

In this essay I will look at the way in which Shakespeare presents the witches to us in Macbeth and the role they play. However, before looking at them I believe a brief look at the background to the play would be beneficial in order to help understand the way in which they were presented in context with Jacobean times.

Macbeth was written by Shakespeare sometime between 1603 and 1606; James the First was king at that time having succeeded the throne in 1603. Shortly after becoming king, James the First took Shakespeare and his company under his personal patronage and renamed those “The King’s Men”. James the First, both before and after his ascension to the throne had encountered acts of treason against him. The most famous of which was the gunpowder plot of 1605.

King James and the political climate of the time seem to have been a big influence on Shakespeare.

Macbeth may have even been written directly for James the First and the fact that several of the major characters in the play such as Banquo and Duncan are based on relatives of the king lends credence to this. It is also likely that Shakespeare saw in the public at large the interest created by these plots against James the First and the ensuing trials that took place. James the First was a strict protestant and a firm believer in the supernatural which was common during this period.

He strongly believed in witchcraft and wrote a book titled daemonology in which he associated the powers of witches and their magic with that of the devil. The majority of the audience at the time the play was conceived also shared this belief of witchcraft and it being evil which contrasts with audiences of Macbeth today. Women’s accepted roles during this time were also vastly different from today. Strong, dominant female characters were not accepted by society and viewed as unnatural by the majority and most likely even Shakespeare himself.

It is this supernaturalism which was very topical of the time that is one of the key themes of Macbeth along with ambition. There are many underlying themes in Macbeth such as, good vs. evil, love, deception and loyalty. However the supernatural can be linked to all of these themes and is used with great effect by Shakespeare to explore and draw out the evilness and corruption in man. As soon as the opening of the play is viewed in which the witches make their first appearance, Shakespeare leaves the audience in no doubt as to the nature of the three witches and the dark tone of what lies ahead.

The opening in act I scene 1 with thunder and lightning followed by the witches proclaiming at the end of the first couplet that “Fair is foul and foul is fair” informs the audience immediately that these three creatures are somehow ‘unnatural’ and go against Gods order of there being distinction between good and evil. This supernatural theme linked with evilness continues throughout the play and is used in many instances to drive the story of Macbeth forwards. From the prophecies the witches make in act I scene 3 which influence and court Macbeth’s interest, to the dagger which is seen to lead Macbeth on in act II scene 1.

It can be said then that the role of the witches with regards to the message of the play is to be the face of evil, the instigators of corruption in men. Lady Macbeth is also linked to the witches in that her character is an unnaturally strong female who also tries to corrupt Macbeth. However Shakespeare shows the audience early on that the witches have a limit to their power, they can shape shift but not perfectly “And like a rat without a tail,” act I scene 3. Macbeth never loses his free will due to being possessed by some sort of evil devil or great magic and it is ultimately his own ambition which causes his downfall.

The way in which the witches are presented to us in the first act is rather ambiguous and can be interpretated in different ways. It’s unclear to us whether these creatures are even human, shown by Banquo’s comment that “That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth,” in act I scene 3. Again it seems that Shakespeare wants us to be sure that the three witches are somehow unnatural. In the many different productions of Shakespeare over the years the interpretation of how to present the witches to the audience has varied.

A play watched by myself recently showed the witches to be Mediums, speaking in unison, communicating and receiving instructions from elsewhere which were passed onto Macbeth. This is a more modern view perhaps of the supernatural and while sticking to the original theme, contrasts quite sharply with the image film director Polanski presents us with in his film adaptation. In which we are presented with a more classical view of the three witches yet still different from Shakespeare’s original vision. One who is blind, the other deaf and the last dumb. Even so, the underlying theme of the supernatural and evil tends to remain in different productions, though the witches may be presented to us in different ways.

The language used by Shakespeare to present the witches to us is also important. Most of the play is written in blank verse with the majority of the characters using this free form poetry. Prose is used in several scenes, for example the letter to Lady Macbeth in act I scene 5. Prose is also used by the porter in act II scene 3 and this shows a distinction by Shakespeare between characters of a lower social standing and those nobler ones who speak with blank verse. Lady Macbeth also starts to speak in prose after her breakdown as she finds herself unable to cope with the guilt of her actions. The witches however speak not in blank verse or prose, they use verse couplets, below is an example.

Act IV scene 1

1 WITCH. “Round about the cauldron go.

In the poison’d entrails throw.

Toad that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Swelt’red venom sleeping got

Boil thou first I’ th’ charmed pot.”

ALL. “Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

This style of writing seems very appropriate for the witches; the rhyming style conjures up images of spells and incantations being chanted. I feel this adds greatly to the atmosphere Shakespeare wants us to feel in the scenes which include the witches, again all playing a part to make us feel that the witches are somehow scary, sinister and supernatural. Coupled with this, Shakespeare uses repetition of words to bring home to the audience the meaning of the play. One of the more striking examples is fair and foul which are the first words Macbeth speaks and also spoken by the witches during the same act.

The structure of the play encompasses the five traditional acts which are then subdivided into scenes. The play however is split into two parts. In the first half of the story we witness Macbeths rise to become king. The second half of the story we witness his efforts to deal with the consequences of his actions, his fall from grace and ultimate demise. The structure as such follows the formula of crime and consequence and again Shakespeare has paid special attention to the witches and their effect on the structure of the play. The witches in a sense introduce each half of the play. They set the tone and atmosphere of the play in the beginning, setting up the crime with their first set of prophecies to Macbeth. Then, at the half way point when Macbeth sees Banquos ghost in act III and visits the Witches for affirmation, they set the seeds of consequence to the audience with the second set of prophecies.

In conclusion, the witches, even though they appear in just a few scenes, are central to setting the tone of the play. Right from the get go the characters help set a dark, foreboding atmosphere which might not exist without them. Even so, in the scenes which include supernatural hallucinations such as Banquos ghost in act III scene 4, it is unclear whether or not the characters affected are really under a spell or have encountered some sort of psychological breakdown. It is possible Shakespeare had knowledge ahead of his time about human psychology yet thought that his audience would still need strong, evil characters that they could easily identify with and thus created the witches to fit that archetype.

An audience of today could sit and accept that not everything is black and white, good and evil. I believe that it would not have been the case in the 1600’s. Still, I am of the opinion that the role the witches have to play is pivotal even in context with today. Without them and the questions they raise through their prophecies in the play, it would not have had the same dramatical impact which has endured over time and inspired countless works even though the audience has changed over the years and in the main no longer believes in witchcraft.

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Shakespeares presentation of the witches in Macbeth Essay Example

• Pages: 9 (2424 words)
• Published: October 22, 2017
• Type: Analysis

Shakespeare was born in Stratford upon Avon, he married Anne Hathaway and had children, went to London and found work acting and writing plays and at the end of his life he returned to Stratford. His mother was Mary Arden, born of Robert Arden; a wealthy yeoman farmer.

Shakespeare wrote the play, "Macbeth" based loosely on eleventh-century Scotland. He wrote this play to please and entertain the King and he made it relevant to their lives by bringing 'realism' with the characters of the witches. He selected, altered and added to the story to achieve the greatest dramatic outcome.He invented Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking and suicide, Banquo's ghost (and therefore the banquet scene), and most of the cauldron scenes.

He also changed the perception of Duncan from an ineffectual king into an old and revered ruler, and omitted Macbet

hs ten years of good rule. The play was first performed in the sixteenth century, during this time, witches were terrifying characters. People believed witches could speak with the devil, kill or maim people, fly, become invisible and could control the weather.Thousands of women were tortured and executed because they were accused of witchcraft.

This is why it is so significant that the production of Macbeth opens with thunder and lightening, and the entering of three witches; the audience at the time would have been petrified of them. The witches are portrayed in the play as gruesome, unpleasant and evil characters. Factors contributing to this are the deeply descriptive imagery they use; "liver of blaspheming Jew", "fillet of a fenny snake", while casting spells, which is so vivid that we can imagine before us this cauldron of animal

remnants.Not only is the language used by the witches ugly, but also they are also ugly, being described as "filthy", "withered", "wild and bearded", which is never a good look.

.. Although the director's interpretation of the appearance of the witches alters from play to play, mostly they are associated with ugliness. The witches also show complete disregard for any social difference between woman and man; which would have been apparent at the time Shakespeare wrote the play.

Although socially we have overcome the difference between sexes and now witches are not generally feared, the grotesque language and ugliness of the witches allows them to remain feared and prominent characters today, even more so for those who still believe in the existence of witches. The play goes forth: Macbeth and Banquo, victorious Lords serving Duncan, King of Scotland, meet three witches who prophesy that Macbeth "shalt be King hereafter". Lady Macbeth helps persuade her husband to murder Duncan while he is a guest at their castle. Malcolm, son and heir to Duncan, flees to England.

Macbeth, now King, has Banquo murdered, whose ghost subsequently appears to him at a banquet. When the witches warn Macbeth to "beware Macduff", a nobleman who has gone to England, he has Macduff's wife and children murdered. Macduff and Malcolm raise an army against Macbeth. Lady Macbeth dies, possibly through suicide. Macbeth is killed by Macduff and Malcolm is crowned King of Scotland.

The witches introduce the story which quickly establishes the mood and themes; such as good verses evil, of the play. It creates tension and drama at an early stage of the production, scaring the audience and capturing their attention.The fact

the witches' mention Macbeths name, "There to meet Macbeth", links him with evil immediately, even before we have come across the character. The stage directions in Act One Scene One show an "open space"; which allows the audience's imagination to run wild, while it remains a timeless and universal setting, and thunder and lightening. The thunder and lightening is representative of pathetic fallacy, because we associate thunder and lightening with evil, and it also introduces the thought that the witches can control the weather, as was thought about real witches during the period the play was produced.

This thought of the witches controlling the weather is compounded in Act One Scene Three, when the witches devise wind so that they may get revenge upon a sailor's wife. This scene also emphasises the vindictive and unpleasant nature of the witches, using phrases like, "killing swine," "I'll drain him dry as hay," and "here I have a pilot's thumb. " During the casting of the spell there is a "drum within", which creates a feeling of tension and anticipation. This scene in set in "a heath", which is once again vague, similar to the "open space", also similar, is the present "thunder".At the end of this scene the "witches vanish" which draws our attention to their supernatural powers and adds suspense.

The key characteristic of Macbeth's witches is that while they can influence Macbeth's actions, they cannot compel him to commit the evil deeds that he undertakes in the course of the Scottish tragedy. This limitation on the power of the weird sisters, their dependency upon human will to work their black arts, is highlighted by the difference

between Banquo's reaction to their initial predictions and that of Macbeth.After their encounter with the witches in Act One Scene Three, Banquo wonders aloud about whether they were real or whether he and Macbeth are suffering from some type of hallucination: "Were such things here as we do speak about? /Or have we eaten on the insane root/That takes the reason prisoner? ". It is not Macbeth, but Banquo, who first notices the witches on the heath, asking Macbeth: "What are these/So withered and so wild in their attire/That look not like th' inhabitants of the earth/And yet are on't".Banquo then asks the witches directly whether they "live or are "aught" and Macbeth demands further, "Speak, if you can, what are you? ".

They do not respond to these questions, but simply hail Macbeth, first as Thane of Glamis, then as Thane of Cawdor, and finally as "King hereafter. " When Banquo asks that witches if they can foretell future, they hail him as a future sire of Scottish monarchs, and when Macbeth then asks the witches to explain their salutations and the means by which foresee future, they vanish into thin air.Banquo ultimately concludes that the witches are not a hallucination, nor are they of substance, explaining to Macbeth that, "the earth hath bubbles, as the water has/And these are of them". The next scene in which the witches appear is Act Three Scene Five, which is set in "a desolate place", which echoes the vagueness of previous scenes but also conjures up images of an inhospitable environment, which is rather befitting of the witches. Pathetic fallacy continues to create tension with the use

of thunder.

The scene consists mainly of a speech by Hectate; the queen of the witches, a character who we are not really introduced to, so she is mysterious. Hectate refers to the witches as "Beldams" which draws attention to their ugliness, as noted by Banquo who describes them as withered women with beards, and Macbeth who refers to them as "secret, black, and midnight hags," "filthy hags" and "juggling fiends. " Hectate talks further of "affairs of death" and tells of the witches being "spiteful and wrathful"; she also refers to "the pit of Acheron", Acheron being a river in hell, so this links the witches to evil.This leaves us feeling fearful of Hectate, and the power she has, being queen of the witches. She tells the witches to 'draw him on to his confusion'; confusion to make Macbeth over-confident, because 'security is mortals' chiefest enemy.

" This brings us to wonder upon, how responsible Macbeth is for his own fate, or whether he was merely part of the witches, or Hectate's, evil plan. Language plays a large part in our interpretation of the characters, with prose relating greatly to evil.This is illustrated by Macbeth, who speaks in prose while conversing with the three murderers; this is degrading and links him with evil and murder. The murderers speak in prose throughout. Lady Macbeth also begins to speak in verse and prose towards the end of the play, which links her to evil and witches.

The witches speak in rhyming couplets throughout and with a rhythm of incantation; this sets them apart from any other character in the play.The witches also appear very fond of paradoxes,

"fair is foul, and foul is fair. These double meanings can be ambiguous and misleading, and ultimately lead to misinterpretation on Macbeth's part giving him a false sense of security with their apparitions of truths. Instead, they prove to be harmful for Macbeth who takes too much comfort and confidence in his interpretation of the truths. After the first of the witches' prophecies comes true, Macbeth begins to believe in their truth. However, he also believes that the prophecies must all lead to his enrichment and empowerment.

To that end, he twists the witches' words to fit his own purposes, ignoring the possibility that the prophecies might have other, less fortunate meanings. This tricked Macbeth by using ambiguous and contradicting language, which leaves us to question whether he was responsible for his own misinterpretation. Our next encounter of the witches is in Act Four Scene One, apparitions are involved. They account for Macbeths conclusive actions at the end of the play.

The scene takes place in "the pit of Acheron", which is in hell, reminding us that the witches must be agents of the devil, and also just how deeply Macbeth has spiralled into evil. Again we see pathetic fallacy in the form of thunder, which creates tension. In this scene the witches make a broth, of which the ingredients sound distinctly unpleasant, including "eye of newt", "wool of bat", "lizard's leg" and "baboon's blood". These disgusting ingredients are a reflection of the witches unpleasant and destructiveness.

Our attention is drawn to them through the use of alliteration. Although Macbeth does not seem uncomfortable or intimidated by the witches they show themselves to have the upper hand by

mocking him, "sisters, cheer we up his sprites". Music and dancing are apparent in this scene which suggests a sinister ritual or spell and adds to the tense atmosphere. In 'Macbeth', the witches demonstrate dark thoughts and unconscious temptations to evil. They skilfully manipulate the character of Macbeth, whose ambition allows him to become more involved in the thought of becoming powerful.

He first begins to think of his being King, after the three witches begin to tell him of his fate. When they try to leave, he immediately remarks for them to "stay" and to "tell (him) more". By Macbeth wanting to know of his future plans, he is ambitiously corrupting himself. Macbeth longs to become King so much that he will do anything to meet his goal. Macbeth has "no spur to prick" the outcome of his intent, "but only Vaulting ambition".

Also, for him to even consider the actions he performs, goes completely against church doctrine.Duncan's role in society would have been perceived as God's messenger on earth, and for Macbeth to contemplate any harm towards the king, would have been as an act against God himself. We see that this is in contrast to Banquo's reaction to the witches' prophesies, who vows to keep his "allegiance clear". The witches also ultimately affect Lady Macbeth, via Macbeth's letter. She is so determined to fulfil the prophesy of Macbeth becoming king, that she invokes evil spirits to strip her of her femininity, "unsex me here", and to help her influence the killing of Duncan.

She appears to have no moral or political considerations other than her own desire for glory. Although not a "secret, black,

and midnight hag", as an evil female, Lady Macbeth could also be considered a witch herself according to the standards of Shakespeare's day. In the same way that witches subvert the natural order of religion and society, Lady Macbeth subverts the order of the sexes and the family by trying to have more power than the head of the family, her husband. Not only does she act out of order, but several of her actions imply that she is actually witch-like.However, in the end, it is the witches, or perhaps the evil that they created, that have broken Lady Macbeth, as she sleepwalks while speaking consoling words to her husband. This is ironic because it is in fact Lady Macbeth that needs consoling.

Throughout the play we see Macbeth's character dramatically degenerate; at the beginning Macbeth is victorious; he has just returned from the battle ground as a courageous and heroic warrior. Macbeth's reputation is rapidly growing with the rampant spread of the word of his great deeds in war.This climaxes when his actions are acknowledged and rewarded by the title given to him by King Duncan. "No more that thane of Cawdor doth deceive / our bosom interest. Go, pronounce his present / death, / and with his former title greet Macbeth.

" At this time, Macbeth is entirely content with his position and his circumstances. He has not stopped to contemplate how much he can achieve and explore his limitations. Instead he fights for what he believes in, his morals; to defend his country from foe. He is fighting for his King, not questioning his authority or plotting against him.It is only upon

meeting the witches that he opens his mind to the possibilities laid before him. It is this ambition, ignited by the witches, that turns Macbeth into a treacherous murderer, whose ambition lead to his downfall.

The audience is left to question whether this downfall was ultimately because of the "weird sisters", or whether they merely prophesied the inevitable. All in all, I believe Shakespeare's presentation of the witches to be outstanding, and it is because of these, complex and intriguing characters, that the play remains a very much appreciated piece of literature.The witches bring a new dimension to the story, one of evil and the supernatural, and also the question of who was responsible for Duncan's untimely death. I imagine that in Shakespearean times the audience would accept without a second thought, that it was the witches who infected Macbeth's mind, and possessed him to do such an awful thing. But in more modern times, while some people still believe in witches, we are left to question the evil in ambition, and the trust we put in others.

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