In Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” the everlasting relationship between Macbeth and the three witches is the foundation of the entire plot. When Macbeth meets the witches he views them as honest and believes on them quickly. The witches having established contact with the protagonist, indirectly affect and transform his beloved wife. Towards his demise Macbeth finally realizes how the witches have heinously betrayed him.
In the beginning of the play the witches are first there to tell Macbeth about his future and the set the mood also very fond of the witches as they awaken in him his dormant vaulting ambition to be king. He cannot forget the meeting that he had with them “My thought, whose murder is yet but fantastical, shakes so my very single state of man that function is smothered in surmise, and is but what is not”. Macbeth very quickly believes completely without any doubt of proof , it is unimaginable how the witches could manipulate one who is supposed to be “Valliant”. Macbeth trusts in the witches to an extent that he stars to suspect people who are close to him, even his brother in arms: “We would spend it in some words upon that business, if you would grant the time”. It is quite clear that Macbeth has become increasingly paranoid due to his evolving relationship with the three weird sisters.
Throughout the whole play the witches are in Macbeth’s mind corrupting him even further by getting into his wife Lady Macbeth’s mind. “Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts,
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unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top full direst cruelty.” Lady Macbeth is basically praying to the witches to help her take over Macbeth’s kingdom. She wants to become him so she can take his position as King, not knowing that the witches hear tricked Macbeth. Under the influence the witches she is driven to extreme measures: “Come thick night and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell”. One would not have imagined that the witches’ power would have extended to influence humans to bow to the devil indirectly.
The witches may also appear in many different forms, this has already been witnessed by the audience: “I come, Graymalkin” “Paddock calls” “Anon”. When Duncan arrives at Macbeth’s castle the witches are present in a way. They are present in Lady Macbeth’s fake attitude towards the King: “Your majesty loads our house: for those of old, and the late dignities heap’d up to them, we rest your hermits.”. It is noticeable that Lady Macbeth speaks somewhat like the witches in rhyme this shows the extent of the power of the three weird sisters and how solid their relationship is with the Macbeth’s.
The witches don’t seem to control Macbeth but they give him visions and trick him into doing unlawful things. “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.”. A deadly illusion is created before Macbeth in order to make sure that he becomes King in his eyes but the witches know the truth. This is the most important between the witches and Macbeth because it shows how easily he can be fooled and mind controlled by them, he was so quick to King Duncan. It thinking of the consequences that would come after the matter.
Having fully fulfilled the prophecy of the witches, the relationship between Macbeth and these ministers of evil continues to grow evermore leading Macbeth even closer to his demise:
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“How now, you secret, black and midnight hags?”. Notice the normal, familiar, even demanding tone that Macbeth uses with the witches this emphasizes how close Macbeth and the witches are, or so does Macbeth think. The witches corrupt Macbeth even further by showing him three apparitions. “Come high or low: thyself and office deftly show”.
The apparitions were the last thing to make Macbeth believes in the witches they tricked and blind Macbeth from the truth making him think that he is invincible, and hence deceiving him. “Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth Beware Macduff. The power of a man, for none of women born Shall harm Macbeth. Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsiane Hill shall come against him”. It is here where we see the true face of the relationship between the witches and Macbeth as it really is: a deceptive, manipulating and equivocating one. This is never seen by Macbeth himself, which influences the story even more.
To show the audience how the relationship between Macbeth and the witches is important to the plot of the play he breaks down their relationship at the climax of the play: “I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought the wood began to move”. The first brutal betrayal by the witches came at a time when Macbeth was already in mourning due to the death of his partner in greatness. It is at this moment when strikes Macbeth and shows him the true nature of the witches in which he placed so much of his trust: “I pull in resolution, and begin to doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth”.
Even at when he is so near to his moment of death Macbeth still carries little belief of what the witches had previously told him. “Thou wast born of woman; but swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn brandished by man that’s of woman born”. This proves how intact the relationship between Macbeth and the weird sisters was; even after discovering that they betrayed him
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Macbeth still clings to the one prophecy that he hopes to be true. This fool’s hope is ripped away by Macduff. “Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”. The solid, seemingly unbreakable relationship between Macbeth and the witches has finally broken down completely proving that it was futile from the start.
This play is no exception to the fact that relationships are important and affect the story of Shakespeare’s plays. If it was not for the doomed relationship between the witches and Macbeth the play might not have been a tragedy at all. This bond between Macbeth and these witches of evil serves as the cornerstone of the entire play and a crucial catalyst to the plot. It could be said that the relationship between Macbeth and the witches was all apart of there plan to make Macbeth go bad and fail.