The Witches

Seite 1

The Witches have supernatural powers

The Three Witches are also known as the Weird Sisters

The look like ugly women with beards, which suggests straight away that they're unnatural and evil

The Witches can see the future - all predictions come true eventually

They seem to act out of malice - they don't gain anything from their actions, they like causing trouble

They speak in short lines that rhyme

Sets them apart from the other characters

Most characters speak in iambic pentameter - five stressed and unstressed syllables in one line

But the Witches speak in trochaic tetrameter - stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one

Lines like "Eye of newt, and toe of frog/Wool of bat, and tongue of dog" make them sound gruesome and evil

Banquo isn't sure whether the Witches are real or imaginary

"Are ye fantastical, or that indeed/Which outwardly ye show?"

He's suspicious that their appearance is misleading

The Witches are...

Evil: "instruments of darkness"

Ambiguous: "This supernatural soliciting/Cannot be ill, cannot be good"

Strange: "So withered and so wild"

Theme - Reality and Appearance

The Witches' line "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" shows that nothing is as it seems in the play

Seite 2

They're evil, but don't tell Macbeth to murder

The Witches are usually accompanied by "Thunder and lightning"

Makes atmosphere dark and frightening

Make prophecies but they never explain how they'll happen

In this way, they take advantage of Macbeth's weakness (his "Valuing ambition) and use it to control his actions

The Witches don't tell Macbeth to murder Duncan

But they do predict he'll be king, which pushes him to kill Duncan

The Witches confuse Macbeth using paradoxes

For example, telling him that Banquo will be "Lesser than Macbeth,and greater"

By not being clear about what the future holds, they keep control of Macbeth

Hecate is the goddess of witchcraft

She's angry at Macbeth's behaviour, so she uses apparitions to punish him

They trick him by making predictions that give him false sense of security, such as "none of woman born/Shall harm Macbeth"

These predictions indirectly lead to his death