Directions: 1) Read through the material on the website link above which contains helpful background material on the witches during Shakespeare's time. You may find a whole new way of viewing the play and Macbeth. 2) Next, revisit all the moments where the witches come into focus. Read the text with a fresh set of eyes. How was Macbeth viewed when he first meets them? In Act IV? 3) Compose a blog response sharing your insights on the relationship among the witches, Macbeth, Banquo, and the concept of fate. Please use direct evidence from the text and the website in your responses.
When Macbeth first meets the witches, he is a beloved guy, he has friends, a wife, and everything he wants except a child. After he meets the witches, he starts descending into madness. We can see that when Macbeth says, “I will not be afraid of death and bane till Birnam Forest comes to Dunsinane.” To Macbeth, and us, that sounds completely normal because we know about the witches and their prophecies. To other people, like Lennox, that’s complete gibberish because if you think about it when is a whole forest going to come down to the castle? In class when we are talking about if Macbeth had free will or if the witches conjured him, I thought about fate, destiny, and coincidence. I was thinking about how each witch could represent one of those. We can not choose our fate, it is determined by another force (the witches). With destiny, there is an element of choice with it. We can actively change and shape it with the choice we make. Macbeth is doing that with the prophecy where they say be bloody and bold. He’s not going to second guess himself, he is just going to do it. The third one is coincidence. Coincidence is when two events happen at the same time. While it does look like the witches planned to meet Macbeth, they are mischievous and unpredictable. Macbeth could have stumbled upon them when they had a plan to meet him elsewhere when the battle ended. We don’t know what the witches can or can’t control, all we can do is infer about it.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading the material on the website link, I had thought that the witches were just evil beings that enjoyed tormenting people. However, after seeing the connection made between how the witches treated the sailor and his wife and how their prophecies on Macbeth has changed him, I have a whole new idea of the witches’ motives. The witches punished the sailor because his wife was either unable or unwilling to offer them something they wanted. In order to make the wife feel guilt or pain for choosing not to give them chestnuts, they attacked someone she holds dear to herself. In comparison, Lady Macbeth is unable to offer Macbeth a child, which is the one thing Macbeth is in need of. Due to the fact that she cannot offer a child, the witches decide to do the same thing to Lady Macbeth as they did to the sailor’s wife, torture the husband. They set a prophecy on Macbeth that causes him to murder his own king and relative, and then live with the consequences. As the audience sees Macbeth’s demise, they are drawn away from the fact that Lady Macbeth seems to be declining as well. By seeing her husband go insane, as well as being blamed for not being able to produce an heir, Lady Macbeth undergoes a lot of stress. The first and last time the audience sees the effects of this stress on Lady Macbeth is when Macbeth is notified that his wife has committed suicide. So, punishing the husband for the wife’s mistakes or incapabilities is a recurring theme for the witches in the play.
ReplyDeleteMy perspective of the witches hasn’t changed much since reading the article. Macbeth believes that the witches are mysterious and strange and I agree. What I find the most interesting about them is that they tell Macbeth exactly what is going to happen in the future, and he never fully listens to their prophecies. “Third apparition: Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care / Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. / Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him. (4,1,103-108)”. Here they literally warn him that something will occur at Birnam Wood all the way to high Dunsinane Hill, and all he can think about is trying to kill Macduff so that he can’t have the crown. As we can guess English soldiers show up at Birnam wood with Malcolm and Macduff. I just find it fascinating that the witches prophecies have all come true and Macbeth has become so unstable that he is a threat to himself and his kingdom and that he can’t protect his throne. I have preferred Fassbender’s rendition of Macbeth much better than the BBC one. The witches seem more realistic to the time period and seem more likely to have complex powers. I like that they change shape from old women to small children. Which makes Macbeth seem more emotional delusional.
ReplyDeleteWhen we first met Macbeth he was viewed almost as weak. Although, he was very strong as a military man and well respected when but when it came to his wife he was very weak and he very rarely stood up to her, LADY MACBETH
ReplyDeleteO, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. He that's coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night's great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
MACBETH
We will speak further.
LADY MACBETH
Only look up clear;
To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.
For example in this scene Lady Macbeth is talking about how she wants to kill the king and Macbeth only says we will talk later but he knows that means that he is going to have to do whatever she wants and when they are actually going through with it, he never challenges her he just does it. I think the wishes show us the true Macbeth because throughout the play it slowly exposes him because we learn more and more about him and he starts to show his true colors. It’s as if the witches control his fate. Even with Banquo what they said came true. I think it is also interesting because of how the witches talk, as the website says they talk in verse and riddle which I think during the time this was written was supposed to add to their hysteria.
When you first see what the witches do to the sailor when his spouse won’t give them her chestnuts, you already know that they have malicious intent.
ReplyDelete“A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--
'Give me,' quoth I:
'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.”
Although the first impression of the three witches to the reading seems to be bad, I was more or less confused when they first confronted Macbeth and Banquo, with how they promised them what seemed to be nothing positive news.
First Witch
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
When they acknowledged Macbeth’s rule, it wasn’t them necessarily praising Macbeth, but in hopes of him becoming greedy and turing violent for more power. If it wasn’t for Lady Macbeth forcing him to kill Duncan and become king of Scotland, he would’ve had what he’s trying to search for right now. And now with Lady Macbeth’s sleep talking giving away all the terrible acts Macbeths commited since the murder of Duncan, It’s clear to see how Lady Macbeth took power but also lost it. In this case, I wouldn’t say the three witches had a direct impact, but definitely were hoping for a tragic outcome for the two.
I think that the witches are meant to be more of a foreshadowing that is meant to transpire in the reading. I do believe that it was also up to Macbeth whether to believe the witches or not. Everyone is in control of their own destiny. I think Macbeth felt that because they were “witches” that he had to believe them and in doing so altered his own fate. Banquo knew this and when given his prophecy, he didn’t change any of his everyday life. In act I, after banquo and Macbeth’s encounter with the witches they jokingly told each other “your children shall be kings… you shall be king” to each other. However once Macbeth discovered he was thane of cawdor Macbeth basically did everything the witches told him would happen just because they were branded as witches. I think that because of the power that was said they had Macbeth did everything they did even though they could have just been ordinary strangers.
ReplyDeleteBen Weeden
Since reading about them in the beginning the witches had seemed suspicious and I thought they were the ones behind all the events in the book. Whilst reading the article It became more apparent that the witches were not controlling the future and instead Macbeth went mad for power.
ReplyDeleteFirst Witch
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
Macbeth is the one in charge of his own future the witches only told him what his future will be if he continues to go mad. Macbeth did everything the witches told him because he thought their power was going to help him. In reality the witches knew about his lust for power and to bet the king and they did nothing but tell him his future.
When I first began reading Macbeth I thought the witches weren’t super important and they were just kind of there to tell the audience what may be happening later on in the play sort of like they were foreshadowing events that were to come in the play. After reading the information on the website, I realize that the witches played a really important role because in those days people really believed in witches and people would have taken what the witches said to heart and if they were saying bad things they would have been terrified, but they also would have been terrified if they were telling good things because, to the people back then, they believed that the witches were just out to get everyone, killing their animals, causing illnesses and so much more. I think the whole thing with the sailor and his wife was put in to really exaggerate how evil and vindictive the witches were so that the audience would feel fear and to show what they were capable of before introducing us to Macbeth. I think at the beginning Macbeth was just viewed as someone who would come into a lot of luck for being such a hero in battles and he was really loved and respected. I think by the end it made it seem as if Macbeth was invincible and it empowered him more than the first prophecy had. He didn’t think anything could beat him so he could let his guard down but keep killing people that were in his way of becoming king.
ReplyDeleteWhen the witches and Macbeth first meat Macbeth seems to be a loyal and innocent man who everyone seems to like. He lives a happy life where he gets along with his wife and the king and his friends. After Macbeth meets the witches he makes a turn for the worse and starts to go down a dark path. After reading more into the witches I began to believes that it’s more that the witches are making him do these bad things rather then him doing it because the witches tell him what will happen. It’s almost like the witches cast some sort of spell on him. Like at the beginning of the play when the witches say
ReplyDeleteFirst Witch
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
Second Witch
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
Third Witch
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
Macbeth is shocked by this because he knows that he is already the Thane of Glamis but he is not the Thane of Cawdor nor the king and he has no reason to believe that he will be. Just after speaking with the witches Ross and Angus come to tell him that he is now the Thane of Cawdor by saying “ And, for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, most worthy thane! For it is thine”. This makes him realize that he could end up being the King after all and that’s when he starts the downward spiral. So after reading more about the witches I now believe that the witches are making him do these bad things.
ReplyDeleteNick Criniti
Macbeth and the witches have a very distinct relationship. Throughout reading the novel Ive noticed that the witches always try to show Macbeth something he hasn't noticed. The definition of fate in the novel is Macbeth being king and him killing his way to stay king. The witches have his back in a way and are kind of his imagination. Macbeth and Baquo's relationship is a bit different. I feel like theres tension between the two of them and they don't trust each other. Im interested to see as we get deeper and deeper into the novel how Macbeth and the witches relationship changes. I feel like the witches the will turn on Macbeth at some point in the novel.
When Macbeth first meets the witches, was seen as a hero by killing the traitor. “For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name-- Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, Which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion carved out his passage”. After he meets them, he becomes tainted with greed. The situation with Macbeth is similar to the first scene with the witches where they torture a woman’s husband for not giving the witches what they want, chestnuts. In Macbeth’s situation, Lady Macbeth is unable to provide an heir, a child so the witches “torture” Macbeth, making him go insane and mad after killing Duncan. I think Lady Macbeth also had a play in this as she convinced Macbeth to kill Duncan and made sure he executed it.
ReplyDeleteWith the first encounter of the witches we see them tourcher the sailor at sea because of his wife. We see they already have evil intentions, but after reading this article it is even more clear to me now just how evil they really are. At this time, in the 1600s witches were being found and executed, under King James VI of Scotland's rule. He was concerned by the threat of witches because he believed that he was almost killed by a group of witches trying to drown him.
ReplyDelete“When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth in 1606, then, he knew that his audience would have felt a mixture of fear and fascination for the three ‘weird sisters’, their imaginations captivated by the mysterious meeting on the desolate heath with which the play begins”.
Macbeth before he met the witches was an honest and a loved guy. After he met the witches, he became very scared all of the time and always second guessing himself and his decisions. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are filled with a lot of stress recently. Macbeth because he was told to murder his very own king by the witches and is now going insane. Lady Macbeth because she is watching her husband slowly go insane.
Maddy Francis
My view of the witches have changed after reading the article. Shakespeare did a good job when creating the characters of the witches. At this time period witches were blamed for causing “illness, death and disaster, and were thought to punish their enemies by giving them nightmares, making their crops fail and their animals sicken.” Before reading it, I thought the witches were able to predict the future and make everything they say become reality. However, Macbeth is responsible for all the events they predict to become reality. Before meeting the three witches, Macbeth was a happy person who had a good relationship with his wife and friends. After being greeted by the witches prophecies, he became determined to make all the events they stated come true. This led him to a downward path to evil and away from any goodheartness. At the beginning of the play, Banquo can see how Macbeth is struck by the information the witches say
ReplyDelete“Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?—I’ th’ name of truth,
Are you fantastical, or that indeed”
This foreshadows the path towards evil that Macbeth takes.
It was the witch's prophecy that awakened the darkness inside Macbeth and his wife and encouraged them to embark on the road of no return. In the end, when the witches were determined to punish Macbeth, they falsely deceived Macbeth, "The pow'r man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth."(121) But the dramatic scene is that Macbeth is still been killed. His rival McDuff was not born of a woman, but "is cut out from his mother's belly." Macbeth planned the assassination of the king and usurp the throne because of the witch's prediction. Wouldn't Macbeth do the offenses without the witches' instigate? I think he would. In other words, if he is truly upright, even if the witch's prophecy is super fancy, the goodness of the heart will not germinate the idea of the murder of the king. But in fact, I prefer to believe that Macbeth is not evil, so I have a nasty attitude towards witches. Why do I believe Macbeth is not evil? Because if a bad guy with a lot of evils, when he becomes the supreme king who covers the sky with one hand, will he feel any guilt at all? For example, Claudius in Shakespeare's other famous tragedy, Hamlet, also assassinated the king and ascended the throne. Has he ever felt any guilt? But Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, after usurping the hegemony, could not bear the pain of the heart, they saw ghosts during the day and remembered in dreams at night. Isn't this funny? Did Macbeth regret it? I think he did. Therefore, he hated the witches at the end. It was them evoked the dark side of Macbeth's heart. Maybe without the witches' instigate, Macbeth might be glorious for life because he was the one who once saved the entire country and admired by all peoples.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it seems as though that the witches have somewhat changed perception. I’m not sure why, but it almost appears as though that to me that incident with the sailor never actually happened, and that it actually turned out it was Macbeth and his wife in the first place. I make this argument, mainly because of the fact that as we progress towards the end of the play, Macbeth is becoming restless, and he’s becoming a lot more sloppy with everything that he is doing. This actually lines up with the website as well, because in it it says “Witches were blamed for causing illness, death and disaster, and were thought to punish their enemies by giving them nightmares, making their crops fail and their animals sicken.” It’s entirely possible that in the eyes of the witches, Macbeth is the enemy. Otherwise why would they have said their prophecy about Banquo? They destined him for failure to begin with. When the First Witch says her opening line in Act 3, I originally thought it was a similar situation to Macbeth. Now, I secretly DO think it’s Macbeth:
ReplyDeleteFirst Witch
A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch'd, and munch'd, and munch'd:--
'Give me,' quoth I:
'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
The wife is, in my opinion, Lady Macbeth. She was thirsty for power and refused to allow the witches any sort of power. As a result, the second piece of what the witches say comes true, with the first witch by saying:
First Witch
I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I' the shipman's card.
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.
Look what I have.
She curses her husband to a fate of restlessness, similar to someone we know, Macbeth perhaps? I’m really activating the conspiracy theory here, but I’m thinking there never was a sailor to begin with. The sailor is the man with ambition, AKA MACBETH. The woman with the chestnuts is the woman who was greedy for power, AKA LADY MACBETH. Looking at the website really just started to spark up the conspiracy theories with me. It’s all about fate. The witches proclaim the future accurately. They call upon Macbeth to profess his future, but forget to leave out the piece that he probably should know. You know, that he’ll get what he wants but go absolutely insane and lose it by his own arrogance at the same time. Even the second time they profess to him the future it always seems to turn out that he doesn’t get the full truth because the witches WANT it to happen. They want to seal Macbeth’s fate, so they only tell him what he needs to know in order to seal it. Macbeth has Banquo killed, sealing his fate and Banquo’s fate. Macbeth gets cocky and the woods walk to Dunsinane, sealing his fate. He doesn’t beware MacDuff because he thinks he handled the problem, sealing his fate. PLENTY of times he had to prevent his fate, but the witches, who likely see him as their enemy, convince him otherwise to move forward with their prophecies through all means that they can. I swear, I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, BUT SOMETHING AIN’T RIGHT ABOUT THEM WITCHES.
Initially, I thought the Witches were only there to announce the prophecy and had no intentions to do harm, since they didn’t directly told Macbeth to do anything. After reading the article, I am certain that the witches were more evil than they appeared, even more than Macbeth; who's supposedly the biggest villain in the play.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning the witches gathered up, revealing one have been “killing swine”, and one have cursed a husband simply because the wife refused to give the witch a chestnut, even making spells out of a man’s thumb. These acts of harming animals and cursing people for no valid reasons shows that the witches are irrational, ruthless and evil.
When the witches agreed to meet again when Macbeth arrives and tells him the prophecy, I can’t help to think of it as another “prank” witches pulls on people. Bringing them terror and misery.
At first when Macbeth appeared, he was a royal, brave and beloved hero who fought for his King and nation. He had all that a man desires. However, after meeting the witches, he lost all those things one by one. He lost his royalty by killing his King, had became scared of all those against him, and lost his love from all those whom once respected him. At the end when Macbeth have lost all he had, and finally came to his death.
Q: What I found strange was that Macbeth felt the need to fulfill the prophecy. It was unclear whether his motive was from the words of the witches, or perhaps by his own ambition.
Grace Shih
I find it interesting that the witches speak in an entirely different manner from all of the other characters in the play. Most of the lines are written in iambic meter, whereas the witches are written in trochaic meter, which alternates stressed and unstressed instead of the other way around. It makes them sound foreboding and menacing. Especially since, at the time that Shakespeare wrote the play, witchcraft was feared and people would be hung for even being suspected of it. Before Macbeth met them, he was seen as a brave warrior, looking to defend his country and honor, and by the next time he meets them, he is seen as someone who cares only about his own ambition and power. We can see a bit of this in how he is initially scared of them and what they say, whereas he actively seeks them out in act IV.
ReplyDeleteParker Houston