SCENE III. A heath near Forres.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches
The new scene opens in another change of location, “a heath”, a liminal space used to facilitate the audience’s own belief in witchcraft. The ambiguity of time and location (we know from 1.1 that this meeting is “ere the set of sun”) implies that the witches could be meeting anywhere, as dusk occurs daily and there are numerous unruly places situated away from civilisation. The scenes involving the supernatural are set away from the boundaries imposed by civilisation, and we cannot decide whether the witches are real or not when they are introduced in a setting that is detached from the societies that create these definitions of what is real and what is merely a figment of the imagination. This effect is amplified by the fact that the theatre itself is a liminal space, where even the most cynical of audiences would believe more than they might expect. When it becomes difficult for the audience to distinguish between reality and fantasy, it becomes easy for them to understand why Macbeth was more susceptible to the witches’ deception, and moves them to wonder whether the witches are present in their own lives, ready to act as the true nemesis of any tragic hero whose hubris and ambition become overmastering. The ambiguity of the setting allows for the trickery of the metaphysical world, what Macbeth will later refer to as the “equivocation of the fiend”, and creates a space where the witches can be both a real threat and held at a distance.
- Emily