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Why are there three witches in "Macbeth"?

xxxboxxx

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Posted by xxxboxxx on January 26, 2007 at 6:03 AM and tagged with macbeth, plot, themes, witches

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mathcar

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High School - 12th Grade

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The number 3 has, historically, always had a magical quality. The number appears many times throughout the play; 3 witches, 3 prophecies, 3 apparations, etc. The "temptation" scene is even the third scene of Act I, and the wiches tend to repeat the same thing, saying it "thrice". I really like Roman Polanski's version of Macbeth and his interpretation of the three witches; it is very druidic. There's 2 older ones and one younger one, almost like the  "witch in training. ' He also presents one witch whose eyes are covered (or maybe aren't even there!), one with her ears covered and the third one does not speak...is it a suggestion of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil??? Interesting interpretation, nonetheless.

Posted by mathcar on July 5, 2008 at 9:17 AM

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revolution

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The three witches in the book was used to represent the three Fates of the ancient mythology, who impersonally weave the threads of human destiny. They take in delight in their power of foretelling the future to play and toy with human's feelings and later destroy them.

 

Posted by revolution on July 15, 2009 at 8:34 PM

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jlbh

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'Witches' is ambiguous. Confusion has largely arisen because the Folio text refers to them in stage directions and speech prefixes as 'witches'. They call themselves the 'Weird Sisters' and...

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Posted by jlbh on November 17, 2011 at 3:39 AM

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ms-charlest...

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This question has already been answered by one of eNotes expert editors.  Here is a link for you:  http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/why-there-three-witches

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Posted by ms-charleston-yawp on December 19, 2011 at 12:16 AM

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