Macbeth What are the roles of the witches Essay

Banquo himself appears at the end of the line with a mirror, thus implying an infinite number of descendants. Stupefied, Macbeth cannot believe his eyes and is angered to realize that despite all of his work, he wears a â€Å"fruitless crown. † The witches disappear and Lennox enters the haunt. He informs Macbeth that Macduff has run off to England. Macbeth decides that he must act out all of his thoughts and impulses. He determines to kill Macduff’s wife and children as his first step of revenge. Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. These lines are two of the most famous in all of Shakespeare’s works. Interestingly, the chants of the Weird Sisters are not written in Shakespeare’s primary meter, iambic pentameter, but in a rapid meter called trochaic tetrameter. Most of Shakespeare’s enchanted verse is written in trochaic tetrameter. As the chanting went on with the sisters more gruesome things got thrown into the cauldron. The ingredients start fairly small and gradually get bigger and harder to find. It starts off with the witches throwing poisoned entrails in and ends up with them throwing a gut of a starving shark or a dragon scale. The witches know something evil is on its way to knock at there door. The second witch say: â€Å"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes, Open locks, whoever knocks† And guess who it is Macbeth. The witches made this evil potion because they knew that something evil was on its way. Its like they were expecting Macbeth to come and they seem quite excited about it as well. When the consequences of the murders of Duncan and Banquo are too much for him to handle, his primal instinct is to go back to the witches. They are now his only hope. It is an admission that he cannot control things any longer and from this point on in the play we just know he is going to die. He returns to the witches because they are his last straw. They are now his only hope. He has been hit by what the consequences could be for murdering Duncan and Banquo. He has gone back to seek advice and help from the witches. He doesn’t know what to do next with his life. His life has been destroyed by evil and ambition combined. Macbeth again tries to control the witches he is commanding them to answer his questions: â€Å"How now you secret, black and midnight hags! What is’t you do? † â€Å"Tell me, thou unknown power† He is trying to control them he tries to question them and overpower them. In the end the witches disappear because they don’t like being commanded by anyone. Macbeth must be scared and confused in which the way the witches talk to him he asks them question and they give confusing and mysterious answers like: â€Å"A deed without a name† The three apparitions in Macbeth show: The first is an armed head, summoned to warn Macbeth that Macduff is coming back to Scotland to ruin him. The second apparition is a bloody child and it tells Macbeth that no man born of a woman can do him harm. This gives Macbeth great confidence: â€Å"Then live Macduff: what need I fear of thee? â€Å". The third apparition is that of a child wearing a crown and holding a tree. It declares: Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him. Macbeth is secure that the third apparition’s prophecy will never be, for ‘who can impress the forest? ‘ or ‘bid the tree unfix his earth-bound roots? ‘ Macbeth is misled by these apparitions he gets cocky and things no harm will come to him because he thinks that no one woman can live and that the Forrest cant move the only one that he is scared about is the third one where he is told that Banquo’s kids will be kings. There was no need to kill Mcduff’s family Macbeth just got cocky. Macbeth thought he owned the world when he got told no woman born could harm him. At the beginning of the play Macbeth got compared to a brave and noble man, but at the end he is described as a butcher because he just killed living things for no purpose. He done it out of pure evil it weren’t even his family that he killed he killed his castle and everybody in it even his animals. In conclusion to this I think that by using the roles of the witches give off a nightmarish and evilness into the play. The witches were horrible characters. They just destroyed Macbeth’s life. I don’t think that Macbeth was in charge of his own life. I think that Macbeth’s destiny lay in the hands of the witches from the beginning of the play to the end of the play. So overall I think the witches did give off an evil sense. Paul Carew 10B English Mr Lynn Page 1 Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.