"The Witches are responsible for the course of action in the play". This statement suggests
 that the whole play of Macbeth was dictated by the witches. In a sense that is true, but
 they didn't dictate it they just outsmarted or they put ideas in the right peoples heads
 and changed their thinking so that they could stay away from all the action.    	The
 witches are very weird and spooky and magical and seem as they have god like powers and
 that they could look into a crystal ball and prophesies everything but are they really whom
 we are led to believe?  The question states that the witches were RESPONSIBLE for the
 course of action, but of course they just put an idea into Macbeth's head and he did the
 rest, everything from Banquo's death to the killing of Macduff's family was not directly or
 at all prophesied by the witches - in fact all they really said was that Macbeth would be
 king, which they could have known if they knew that he was Thane of Cawdor and that if the
 king was killed at any time in the next 10 or so years, Macbeth will be king, Macbeth just
 speeded the time of when the King would die and Macbeth be king.	When the witches told
 Macbeth of the prophecies, Macbeth was VERY interested - he kept thinking about it - and
 when he became Thane of Cawdor and the second prophecy was true, it just sharpened his
 belief in the fact that he would be king eg.		"I am Thane of Cawdor		If good, why do I
 yield to that suggestion		Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,		And make my seated heart
 knock at my ribs,		Against the use of Nature? Present fears		Are less than horrible
 imaginings:		My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,		Shakes so my single state
 of man		That function is smothered in surmise,		And nothing is but what is not".	So here it
 is Macbeth saying that now that he is Thane of Cawdor, he could be king just by removing
 Duncan of the throne (By murdering him). So the seed of thought of Duncan's assassination
 was planted at the very beginning, almost when he heard the three prophecies.	Of course
 after he murdered king Duncan he couldn't let anyone find out partly because he thought
 what he did was half-wrong, and he would be killed for treason. He knew that Banquo could
 have an idea that he killed the king because Banquo knows the prophecies and could easily
 find out that Macbeth killed the king for his personal gain. eg.		"To be thus is nothing;
 but to be safetly thus-		Our fears in Banquo stick deep,		And in his royalty of nature
 reigns that		Which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,		And to that dauntless temper of
 his mind,		He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour		To act in safety. There is none but
 he		Whose being I do fear; and under him		My genius is rebuk'd, as it is said		Mark
 Anthony's was by Caesar."So as is pointed out by Macbeth, Banquo was very smart and Macbeth
 feared that he could put two and two together and then accuse him of king Duncan's
 murder.	But the Witches then appeared again in the play. It was around 3 quaters into the
 play when Macbeth visited them again and they told him of some more prophecies. They said
 that he should beware Macduff beware the thane of fife! They said that none of woman born
 shall harm Macbeth, and that he shall not be vanquished until Great Birnam Wood shall come
 to dunsinane. So this must mean that the witches must have had prophetic powers because all
 of these prophecies are fulfilled by the end of the play. That means that they did have a
 very big influence on the course of the play because as soon as the first prophecies are
 fulfilled, Macbeth goes looking for more, and the witches again set the plot of the
 movie.	The conclusion that will be made is thus. The witches are responsible of the course
 of action in the play because - They started the play off by making those prophecies, in
 fact Macbeth wouldn't have even thought of killing the king if in fact the witches didn't
 mention that he will be king before he dies. When Macbeth killed the king the murdering of
 Banquo and Macduff's family followed mainly because of his suspicion that they might find
 out about that horrible deed that keeps coming back to him in dreams.	I have thought about
 the fact that Macbeth made his own decisions, and that the witches didn't influence the
 play enough to say that they influenced the whole play, but these are not good enough
 reasons compared to the points against which states that they played Macbeth like a puppet,
 by planting ideas in his head that affected his way of thinking - after all the play is
 called Macbeth so what he did was the main part of the play.