FREE ESSAY ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE WITCHES AND LADY MACBETH ON MACBETH

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WITCHES AND LADY MACBETH ON MACBETH

The combination of the influence of the witches and the influence of Lady Macbeth on
Macbeth are what precipitate the tragedy. The witches' initial prophecies, where they
address Macbeth with titles he doesn't have, influence Macbeth. The apparitions in the
play also have an influence on Macbeth because of their ambiguous allure. When Lady
Macbeth questions Macbeth's masculinity she influences him to kill Duncan. Even though
Macbeth has doubts, Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill Duncan by calming his fears. Lady
Macbeth wants to see her husband succeed and become king; she will stop at nothing to
make that possible. The witches' and Lady Macbeth manipulate and evoke Macbeth to act the
way he does in the play because he is susceptible to their influence.
The witches' deceptive predictions give Macbeth and Lady Macbeth a false sense of what is
possible. The witches do not only deceive Macbeth but their predictions tempt him to
commit the murder of Duncan. "From the moment that their eyes first met with Macbeth's,
he is spell-bound. That meeting sways his destiny" (Lambs 184). The Weird Sisters are the
ones who give Macbeth the impulse to commit the treasonous act. "They are the
supernatural beings who encourage Macbeth in his evil inclinations" (Boyce 715). The
witches gave their first prophecies to Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 3. They greet Macbeth,
knowing who he is before he can introduce himself. The first witch greets him with, "All
hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis"(I, iii, 49). This is the title that he
already has, and the only shock in that statement is that the witch knew who he was
without introduction. The second witch then says to Macbeth, "All hail, Macbeth! Hail to
thee, Thane of Cawdor" (I, iii, 50). This is an immediate puzzle to Macbeth because he
thinks that the "Thane of Cawdor lives a prosperous gentleman" (I, iii, 72). A few lines
later, when Macbeth is actually given the title, he replies "why do you dress me in
borrowed robes?" (I, iii, 108). The witches seem to have a clairvoyant sense: that they
are aware of whatever is happening to people around them. They knew that Macbeth would
gain the title of the Thane of Cawdor when they were never at the battlefield themselves.
Also, the fact that Macbeth almost immediately receives the title of Cawdor makes him
have confidence in the other predictions of the witches. Then the third witch says to
Macbeth, "All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!" (I, iii, 51). The Witches'
attempts at misinformation succeed not only because they are favorably interpret
Macbeth's future, but also because their revelations came true almost immediately.
"Macbeth surely means that knowledge of the witches exceeds what can be known by ordinary
humans, for they have a privileged perception of the future, which the later do not"
(Ghose 236). 
Many people in Macbeth's time religiously believed in superstitions. "By virtue of their
spiritual substance they are acquainted with the causes of things, and, thought the
application of wisdom gained by long experience, are able to prognosticate the future
events in relation to Macbeth" (Curry 240). Macbeth's problem is that he is views the
predictions literally. Macbeth is only willing to hear what he wants to of the witches
predictions, and he believes in the witches because their prophecies are so alluring. 
The witches influence Macbeth to want to kill Duncan. They are what Snider calls
"instruments of destiny, [who] give Macbeth his impulse" (213) because they give Macbeth
the initial temptation to advance his position in life. It wasn't even Macbeth's idea,
"but the witches' that he should have the throne. They said it first" (McCarthy 281). If
it weren't for the witches Macbeth would have been fine with his title, the Thane of
Glamis. "But the crown was not Macbeth's pursuit through life: he had never thought of it
till it was suggested to him by the witches; he receives their promise, and the
subsequent earnest of the truth of it, with calmness" (Whateley 178). In fact the
original inclination for Macbeth to be king came from the three witches. They were the
first to implant the thought into his head. "Macbeth is deeply impressed [with the
witch's prophecy]. He thinks this over aloud. 'How can I be Thane of Cawdor when the
Thane of Cawdor is alive?' [cf. I. iii. 72-5] When the mental stumbling-block has been
cleared away for him, he turns to the next question. 'How can I be King when Duncan is
alive? The answer comes back; 'Kill him' [cf. I. iii. 137-142]" (McCarthy 281). Macbeth's
imagination has been opened to that suggestion all because of the witches. Whateley said
that "Macbeth is therefore represented as a man, who's natural temper would have deterred
him from such a design, if he had not been immediately tempted, and strongly impelled to
it" (177). Macbeth would not have wanted to kill, or even harm Duncan if it were not for
the witch's prophecy. 
The apparitions also have an influence on Macbeth. Macbeth goes back to the witches in
Act IV, Scene 1, where Macbeth begs the witches to answer his questions. "Even if the
price of receiving an answer from the witch is universal destruction, he still demands to
know it"(Ghose 242). There are three apparitions. The first, in the shape of a armed
head, tells Macbeth "Beware Macduff, Beware the Thane of Fife" (IV, i, 71-72). Macbeth
thanks the apparition and adds that he too was fearful of Macduff. The second Apparition,
in the form of a bloody child, tells Macbeth "for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth"
(IV, i, 80). "Macbeth is not clever; he is taken by surfaces, by appearance. He can not
think beyond the usual course of things. 'None of woman born' [IV, i, 80]. All men, he
says to himself, sagely, are born of woman; Malcolm and Macduff are men; therefore I am
safe. This logic leaves out of account the extraordinary: the man brought into the world
by Cesarean section" (McCarthy 282). The third Apparition, a child crowned, with a tree
in his hand, has news for Macbeth. The spirit tells Macbeth "Macbeth shall never
vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him" (IV,
i, 92-24). Macbeth sees this as a good prediction because it is impossible for a whole
forest to move. He now feels that he is totally unconquerable. "But the answers Macbeth
receives from the succession of Apparitions summoned by the witches are riddles or
metaphors- bits of language creating the illusion of communicating the truth when what is
understood is no more than an interpretation most appealing or consolatory to the
listener" (Ghose 242). The apparitions provide Macbeth with a false sense of security
that leads up the tragic outcome of the play.
Macbeth is still being controlled by the witches because "Macbeth will be harmed by none
of woman born, and will never be vanquished till Birnam wood shall come against him,
involves no action of his" (Bradley 215). He is still very vulnerable, although he
believes otherwise. The Apparitions urge Macbeth "towards destruction with the
pronouncement of half-truths" (Curry 240). The second and third Apparitions lead Macbeth
to believe that he is invulnerable. Macbeth believes strongly in the apparitions, "whose
predictions seem to promise safety, but actually foretell his destruction" (Boyce 715).
Macbeth is motivated by the second and third Apparitions' promises, that he goes to seek
the answer to one more of his questions. He wants to know if Banquo's descendants will be
kings. The witches give Macbeth his answer with another image of a procession of eight
kings and Banquo as the last. Macbeth says that this is a "Horrible Sight! (IV, i, 122),
but the first witch asks him why he's so surprised, because, after all, they forewarned
him of this in the first prediction. (When the witches first met Macbeth, they told
Banquo that he "shalt get kings, though thou be none" (I, iii, 67)). This shows how
everything the witch's have predicted will come true. "We find that the same ambiguous
oracles which, by their literal fulfillment, deceive those who confide in them" (Schlegel
184). It is obvious that Macbeth is fated to be doomed. "Our essential point is clear-
namely, that the witches foretell the future, and with an accuracy that does not fail in
the very smallest particular" (Rmelin 202). Because of his tragic fate, Macbeth
can never escape the influence of the witches and their accurate predictions of the
future.
Lady Macbeth influences Macbeth to kill Duncan. She serves much the same role as the
witches do in manipulating Macbeth to murder Duncan, but her influence is of a more
frightening nature. She uses her status as a woman to con Macbeth into killing Duncan. As
his wife, she also has to calm any of his fears and doubts. She also is looking out for
his benefit and wants to see him succeed. Lady Macbeth plays a very important role in
tragic development of the play.
Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth's masculinity to convince him to murder Duncan. "Lady
Macbeth touches directly upon these issues in her attack on Macbeth's manhood when he
hesitates to kill Duncan" (Andrews 522). Her first attack to his virility is when she
says, "From this time such I account thy love" (I, vii, 38-39). "She parallels Macbeth's
unwillingness to kill the King with sexual nonperformance" (Bradley, 213). She is making
her love for him dependent on whether or not he carries out this murder. When Lady
Macbeth says "Wouldst thou have that which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, and live
a coward in thine own esteem, letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,' like the poor cat
i' th' adage?" (I, vii, 42-43), she continues to verbally assault Macbeth's courage and
manhood until she has him agreeing to the murder plan. "She urges the excellence and
dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and
animated sometimes the house-breaker and sometimes the conqueror; but this sophism
Macbeth has forever destroyed by distinguishing true from false fortitude in a line and a
half, of which it may almost be said that they ought to bestow immortality on the author
though all his other productions had been lost- 'I dare do all that may become a man, who
dares do more is none.' [I. vii. 46-7]" (Johnson 171). Lady Macbeth will not give up
until she gets what she wants. "He loses his nerve, but Lady Macbeth rallies him"
(Spender 247). She tells Macbeth, "When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be
so much than what you were, you would be so much more the man" (I, vii, 49-51). She tells
him that he was a man when he made the promise to kill Duncan, but now he is not a man
because of his doubts. She expresses that in her very graphic complaint: "I have given
suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was
smiling in my face, have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash'd the brains
out, had I so sworn as you have done to this" (I, vii, 39-42). Lady Macbeth is really
attacking Macbeth, because no man wants to be called a coward, but he especially does not
want to be called one by the woman he loves. "By evoking this vulnerability Lady Macbeth
acquires a power over Macbeth more absolute than any the witches can achieve" (Adleman
287). Lady Macbeth has so much power, which one can observe by her actions over her
husband alone, that she is the greatest influence in his life.
Lady Macbeth has to calm some of Macbeth's fears in order for him to continue the planned
deed of murdering Duncan. "She must deal with her husband's qualms. She insinuates that
he is not an adequate man if he gives in to his fears" (Boyce 356). Macbeth doubts the
success of the plan to murder Duncan. He says to his wife, "If we should fail?" (I, vii,
59); and she retorts with much confidence "We fail?" (I, vii, 60). She also thinks up the
plan on how to kill Duncan. "When Duncan is asleep- Whereto the rather shall his day's
hard journey soundly invite him- his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so
convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
a limbeck only" (I, vii, 62-68). "She is the master of the situation, influences he
husband, and maintains herself in a logical relation to her surroundings" (Coriat 219).
When Macbeth is not willing to go back and see Duncan's dead body Lady Macbeth points out
that "The sleeping and the dead are but pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a
painted devil" (II, ii, 50-53). She calms Macbeth to reassure him that everything will
work out. 
Lady Macbeth's desire for success also causes her to coax Macbeth into murdering Duncan.
"She is ambitious less for herself thank for her husband... after reading her husband's
letter, she does not once refer to herself. It is of him she thinks: she wishes to see
her husband on the throne, and to place the scepter with in his grasp" (Jameson 192). She
asks him why is afraid where there is so much glory in gaining the crown for himself.
When he hesitates to kill Duncan, Lady Macbeth says, "Art thou afeard to be the same in
thine own act and valor as thou art in desire?" (I, vii, 39-41). In the most directly
lustful of her ambitious fantasies, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that the "great business"
of murdering the King "shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign
sway and masterdom" (I, v, 67-68). Jameson says that it "in the mind of Lady Macbeth,
ambition is represented as the ruling motive" (191). Lady Macbeth's motives were for her
husband's advancement. She influenced him to kill Duncan, only so he could enjoy a higher
status. 
The combination of the influence of the witches and the influence of the Lady Macbeth on
Macbeth are undoubtedly what precipitate the tragedy. The witches' initial prophecies set
Macbeth up to be doomed in the first place. The apparitions deceive Macbeth and lead him
to believe he is invincible, when that is not the truth. Lady Macbeth plays a large role
in the influence of her husband. She questioned his manliness to get him to commit murder
for her. She was able to calm his fears to assure him that the plan would work and
benefit him. Lady Macbeth desired to see her husband succeed so much, that she'd tell him
anything to get him to kill Duncan. The Witches influence only existed only on a cosmic
level, as where Lady Macbeth's persuasion of her husband is more fear-inspiring because
she brings the full extent of the witches' evil influence to an internal level with her
power to make Macbeth murder Duncan.
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