The Witches are partially responsible. They are clever and devious in what they did. They specifically chose Macbeth. They spoke his thoughts and they made him believe that only good things were to come and they spoke in riddles to confuse him. Even though Witches were a wide spread belief, were they really as trustworthy as he thought they were? If they could see the future and make these predictions, they must have been able to see what Macbeth was going to do. The play shows that they are evil, for example in Act 4, Scene 1. It contains all horrible and ghastly ingredients such as, “in the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of a newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog…” They are really just teasing him, because they can see the future and know what is going to happen. They say that they have read his mind when they say, “He knows thy thought, hear his speech but say nought.” Macbeth was weak, he should not have put so much trust in the Witches. Banquo didn’t and his wife had no faith in the Witches. They meant for Macbeth to get into this trouble, that he was just an instrument for them to perform and execute their evil mischief.
Macbeth’s character changes through out the play. As we know at the beginning he comes out of the battle feeling triumphant, then he is influenced by the Witches and persuaded by his wife to kill Duncan, showing that he is quite weak. Lady Macbeth and the Witches have disappeared and Macbeth starts to plan and put everything into his own hands, he is controlling his own fate. If Macbeth was not a weak man then he wouldn’t have been influenced by what could have been just some ‘mad old hags’, who were just speaking about nothing. He becomes totally dependent on them, so he shows he is weak and easily influenced by putting all his faith into the supernatural and the Witches. “I will tomorrow (and be times I will) to the weird sisters; More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, by worst means he worst.” The fact that Macbeth is relying on the unreliable sisters and starting to exclude his wife is putting pressure on him. The Witches are never physically there and he is acting alone. Even though he doesn’t want to go through with the murder it doesn’t take long before he is persuaded to do so.
Macbeth becomes an evil person when he starts to murder. The murders give him a sense of power and he become greedy. Macbeth wants the respect of everyone but he becomes paranoid and believes that everyone else is against him. His speech is full of evil, threat and darkness. The fact that he was able to kill a family of wife and children shows that he lost all feeling, and shows that the pressure of everything has got to him. Lady Macbeth and the Witches just help him fuel the ideas he already has. The Witches provoke him and Lady Macbeth convinces him. It is often hard to deny something to someone you love and because Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s relationship was so strong, it pushed him to do it. But it must be remembered that Macbeth was the one who actually killed Duncan.
Lady Macbeth merely conspired and she only did it because she thought it was the best thing for her husband. The Witches never actually said that by killing Duncan he would become king. Macbeth just interpreted the prophecies that way. It could have just been a coincidence that he was given the title of Thane of Cawdor, straight after they predicted it. Macbeth should not have taken this as concrete evidence. After the King Duncan murder, Macbeth puts all his faith in the supernatural. But they did not tell him to kill Banquo, they did not even tell him that Banquo was a threat. When it comes to Macduff they confuse him by having apparitions, to scare him the first, which is of armed head says, “ Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff. Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.” (Act 4 Scene 1) then they contradict themselves when the second apparition appears, which is a bloody child. It says, “Be bloody, bold and resolute: laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of women born shall harm Macbeth.” Macduff it is said had a caesarean birth and therefore did not count as born naturally, in the apparition. The actual man who was born of women was young Siward, so the Witches were right warning him about Macduff, but Macbeth once again took their interpretations of his destiny wrong. Basically they were having fun with him. He even says that he wishes he hadn’t trusted them, and in the same scene that he sees the apparitions, when he is speaking to Lennox, and asks if he has seen the weird sisters. He then says, “infected be the ‘air whereon they ride, And damn’d all those that trust them!”
So the Witches were just having fun and Lady Macbeth was gone after the first murder. Macbeth was responsible for his own tragic end, he was the one who actually killed Duncan, although it was encouraged and egged on by his wife. He was the one who killed his best friend, Banquo and his son Fleance.
From all the evidence I have concluded that Macbeth, a man of status and power should not have allowed himself to get involved with the supernatural. The deeds he performed are sheer evil and no one can blame it on anyone else but Macbeth. He made the choice to kill, all he had to do was to refuse Lady Macbeth, which was not hard seeing as in those days, men were superior to women. He should not have been so willing to listen to the Witches, he should have been suspicious.
He became as the play progressed a cold and callous man. He killed people all because he let superstition, greed and evil take over his mind. He turned from being a brave man to an evil, cold isolated man. He got his kingship, but was left with nothing. At the end he was rightly defeated by Macduff, and one of Duncan’s sons- Malcom became King. Macbeth was responsible for the tragedy that befell him.