The Witches and Hecate portray the image and eminence of evil in Macbeth. During the first scene of the play, the witches are chanting and cackling over thunderstorms, thus introducing themselves as evil beings. They are questioned by Banquo if they are truly women and that “...their beards forbid [me] to interpret that you are so” (I. iii. 44-45), and Hecate is introduced as the goddess of witchcraft. The remark made by Banquo and the title of Hecate states that Shakespeare intends to use repulsive-looking women, mistakenly having beards, to render that women are predominately evil.
The goddess of witchcraft, Hecate, manipulates Macbeth by taking power over the three witches and telling them to mislead Macbeth to his destruction. The woman in the play Macbeth use manipulation to achieve power and in the end, attribute to Macbeth’s downfall. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s
The truth is that many of these decisions that Macbeth makes or follows is based on what the witches told him. One example of this is when Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill Duncan in order to become king. She specifically says, “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be / What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature / … / That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, / and chastise with the valor of my tongue” (1.5.16-17, 27-28). In this quote Lady Macbeth is thinking about the witches prophecy and how she can make it come true.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, light and dark play a big role in the dualities of the characters, the setting and the imagery throughout the play. Macbeth begins with three witches talking about when to meet again. These witches are evil by nature and represent evil throughout the book. The head of these witches states in her first line, “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lighting or in rain?” (I. i.
The witches are possibly linked as the “charms” seem to influence Macbeth and he begins to echo “foul and fair”. Whenever Macbeth seems at his most inhumane he uses rhyming couplets for example, “knell that summons…to heaven…hell” is used before killing Duncan in act 2 and “fight…heaven…find it out to-night” before killing Banquo in act 3.
Therefore the witches could foretell Macbeth’s fate and his downfall. Although, the witches were not completely honest, Macbeths' actions were more ambitious and destructive than the witches, since Macbeth used violence to advance in the game of power taking harmful actions to the advance to the next. Proving, that Macbeths' actions fed his ambitions and led him to his downfall. Secondly, the witches told Macbeth the apparitions as if they were complete truths not just mere predictions. The witches mislead Macbeth into believe a certain fate that could possibly have been a false truth.
Significantly, the witches open the play, a further indication of their importance to the plot. The first thing that we notice is that they are being identified with dark powers and chaos. The stage directions tell us that they meet during a storm. In order to make them seem particularly powerful and different from other characters, Shakespeare has them speaking in rhyming couplets, “When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain.” Not only do these opening lines introduce the witches’ speech patterns, they also establish their powers as they can predict the weather and control it. The weather conditions when they meet can all be linked with the theme of chaos and disorder, which foreshadows their role within the play as it is their predictions which awaken the seeds of ambition within Macbeth.
This creates a mysterious and mystical atmosphere, which creates suspicion as to why they are using their powers. The scene starts off with the witches being in a deserted place with thunder and lightning. The sound effects of these elements set the strange atmosphere of the play that Shakespeare wanted to achieve. All these elements give a huge dramatic effect that grabs the reader’s attention making them wonder; what are these witches doing. The presence of the witches introduces us to a dangerous and dark play.
The first scene of Macbeth strikes the keynote of the play. The deserted and mysterious location, the wild storm, the appearance of the witches, all help to prepare the audience for a drama in which a human soul succumbs to the supernatural suggestions of evil and ranges itself along with the witches on the devil's side. In the opening scene of the play, thunder and lightning occur when the three infamous witches show up. This suggests that the three devilish creatures bring stormy weather with them, which causes disorder in the atmosphere. Already there is an implication of supernatural powers and evilness from the witches’ behalf, since they have the power to create storms and other gloomy atmospheric disturbances.
Question : how does Macbeth's character change from when he meets the witches the first time and when he meets them the second time? In William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", when Macbeth meets the witches the first and second time, the audience witnesses’ one man’s overriding ambitions resulting in consequences both for himself and those around him for the worse. In the play Macbeth is heavily influenced and persuaded by external forces, particularly the supernatural and the immense ambition of Lady Macbeth causing his character to change. Firstly, in act 1, scene 3, Macbeth comes across the three evil witches, who make strong prophecies that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and then King which would have caused Macbeth to be quite scared, defensive and confused due to knowing the consequences of this noble responsibility. This is conveyed on lines 45-50 where the witches say “All hail Macbeth who shall be king hereafter”.