Imagery of Snakes in Macbeth Essay

Throughout the play, Shakespeare uses animals to indicate betrayal. For example, when Macbeth is first told by the witches that he will be king, he feels that if it is fate, it will happen without any meddling of his own. However, he begins to second guess his logic and wonder if he should speed up the process by killing Duncan, but decides against the idea because he is Duncan's loyal knight and friend. Despite Macbeth's decision, his wife, Lady Macbeth, tries to persuade him to kill Duncan. She tells Macbeth "look like th' innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under't." (1.5.63-64). Her tone in this quote is emasculating, making her husband feel weak so he will do what she wants. She wants her husband to invite Duncan to their castle, and while he is there, feeling safe, they will kill him. Duncan sees Macbeth as a trusting friend, but Macbeth will betray him like an evil serpent. Animals are again used used to symbolize betrayal when Malcolm and Macduff first meet. They are both skeptical of each other and Malcolm insinuates that Macduff might betray him. When Malcolm says "To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb/ T' appease an angry god.", he means that Macduff might harm him in order to gain power, much like what Macbeth

Macbeth is the ultimate story of a fight between the forces of good and evil. It tells the tale of a tragic hero whose quest for power leads to his ultimate downfall. Macbeth starts out as an honorable warrior but changes when his ambition becomes uncontrollable. As he becomes increasingly paranoid, Macbeth uses violent means to eliminate threats to his Scottish throne. As the play progresses, blood continuously plays a part in the events as the murders become more frequent. William Shakespeare, the author of Macbeth, uses blood imagery to develop Macbeth’s character, create a foil in between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and to symbolize honor and guilt.

Shakespeare employs a great deal of imagery to depict certain situations, for example he uses the image of blood many times. At this stage in the play Lady Macbeth is confident while Macbeth is subject to frightened loyalty. However, what Macbeth fears is evil of committing the evil deed rather than the evil deed itself. It is al this stage that one can first realise a chink of humanity in the originally confident and cold lady Macbeth. The murder has just been committed and Lady Macbeth relates to Macbeth how the assassinated Duncan appeared to her. “Ha he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t.” Suddenly through the hard exterior that Lady Macbeth possesses, she sees her father as the old man lying murdered on the

When Macbeth is starting to crave power, he decides that he needs to kill King Duncan. His wife, Lady Macbeth suggests, " Look like th'innocent/ Flower,/ But be the serpent under't"(I.vi.76-78). Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to be deceitful to get rid of King Duncan, while Macbeth does not want to kill him at this point. The snake is how Macbeth will solve his problem, for he needs to be the snake himself. He needs to be the snake who will get himself to power. Although, Macbeth problems only go deeper from there. Macbeth's best friends Banquo is a part of a prophecy stating that his children will be kings. With Macbeth's power on the line he feels, "we have scorched the snake, not killed it."(III.ii.15). He hopes his problems will be solved once he kills Duncan, except his problems, carries on to Banquo. After Macbeth Gains power he does not want to lose that power so he decides to kill Banquo and his son. At this moment, Macbeth who is lusting for power believes the treacherous snake is now holding him back from the power which Macbeth feels is his. This is a development in Macbeth’s ideology, for now, he is no longer the snake trying to get power, rather he is fighting the snake. He feels less treacherous and he is starting to lose the morals which once held him back. The murder, however, does not go as he has planned and only Banquo is dead, leading

The violence and the blood that results are important symbols in Shakespeare's Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The blood imagery for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is guilty, murder, remouse and power. It shows Macbeth had killed King Duncan, Banquo and the Guards to get what he want for him to be a king in Shakespeare. Lady Macbeth

“O, never shall sun that morrow see!...look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.”(1.5) In the play Macbeth, we are introduced to many foul characters that play by this evil rule, but the main focus in on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This wedded couple seems so innocent at the beginning of the play that no one would have guessed that they were responsible for multiple murders by the end. Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth into this murderous lifestyle, so by the time he has murdered Duncan he has become cocky about his deed. He believes she is no help to him anymore, as he can murder on his own. By the end of the play, when Lady Macbeth has committed suicide, Macbeth is merely fazed at all because people have been dropping like flies

In Macbeth, Shakespeare sets the themes of seduction, ambition, and deception amid a correlating backdrop, whether you are giving chase on a battlefield, standing in foul weather, or seeing apparitions of bloody daggers we sense danger from the opening act. The play commences with ominous

Shakespeare is unarguably famous for his creative and vivid use of imagery in his acclaimed plays. Animal imagery is one literary device he uses often to develop theme and characterize individuals in his plays. One of his most prominent tragedies, Macbeth, contains many examples of animal imagery, most of which characterizes Macbeth himself. Animal imagery at the beginning of the tragedy, such as the comparison of Macbeth to an eagle and a lion, characterize him as loyal, brave, and honorable. As the play develops, however, the animal imagery used, like a predatory bird and a ferocious beast, begins to characterize him as power hungry, violent, and truly inhumane. In his tragedy Macbeth, William Shakespeare uses animal imagery to reflect

There are many cases in which diction is used to help align the reader with Hamlet and the Ghost in their contempt for Claudius and the Queen. For instance, “a serpent stung me . . . the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown!” uses diction to allow the reader to feel contempt towards Claudius in particular. The use of the word "serpent" instead of Claudius's name associates him with a serpent's connotation of evil. Ultimately, the evil associated with the snake is an allusion to the Bible.

She tells the sprits ‘Come to my woman breasts/And take my milk for gall’ so that she can get rid of all the kindness within her-blood and milk form her breasts- Shakespeare uses ‘direst cruelty’ to express the desperation running through Lady Macbeth and with this Shakespeare creates a very hell-like picture for the audience. However, eventually Lady Macbeth persuasion overcomes Macbeth and finally he agrees to kill Duncan. ‘Let light not see my black and deep desires’, this shows Macbeths ambitions are not of good intention and turns to the universe to express this ambition (about how great it is) It also shows that even though he wants to kill Duncan, the audience is still finding Macbeth arguing whether or not to do it. Shakespeare also uses alliteration to emphasize the amount evil involved in this deed. In relation, Shakespeare shows Macbeth willing to jump the hierarchy of position. ‘We’d jump the life to come’ show the willingness to jump the hierarchy, which instantly shows the relation to the archangel which went against God and the hierarchy of Heaven to create his own land of chaos which is better known as hell. Moreover, Lady Macbeth is shown with even more evil to represent her will for Macbeth to complete the deed, ‘I have given suck and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me: I would while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from

Lady Macbeth plants the seed of murdering king Duncan in Macbeth's mind. The language Shakespeare uses here is significant, the flower is associated with beauty and goodness while the snake is associated with evil. The association with a snake would have been especially strong because in the bible the serpent is seen as an evil being. These comparisons to bible characters would also have shocked Elizabethan audiences, as they believed in heaven and hell.

The murderers that Macbeth hired to kill Banquo have done their job and go to tell Macbeth what they have done. One murderer interrupts the feast that is taking place and explains that Banquo has been killed but his son has escaped. But Macbeth does seem to be too worried, he thinks Fleance is too young pose a threat to him. Macbeth compares Banquo and his son to a father snake to its child, using a biblical reference to how the snake is clever creature. The snake theme continues to be present in the text. As used by Lady Macbeth in Act I scene 6 “But be the serpent under ‘t…” She wants Macbeth to look like he is the friend is everyone when in reality he is plotting against them in secret. Also we see some more religious imagery with snakes,

In first act of Macbeth, you start to see the origin of a Scottish warrior on a risky quest to usurp the throne for himself. It shows the psychological side of thoughts and speculation before proceeding to murder your own king, only for the political gain. Whether it was your own thoughts, or someone had to influence or persuade you, in the end, the murder of a king would always be seen as a sin. In this rendition from William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth is shown as a serpent, tempting Macbeth, her husband, to kill the king. With Macbeth on the edge between two decisions, he would have never fell to the side of killing his own King without his wife.

Evilness itself is a betrayal of the habitual human nature of any person. The natural tendency of a person is morality; however, that inclination can be corrupted and influenced into twisted malevolence. A common image in the play representing this evil is the serpent, shown to be a conniving, wicked tempter. This symbol takes many forms throughout the story, beginning as a comparison of the ideal character Macbeth should strive to be and finishing as yet another threat to Macbeth’s quest for glory. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have to defy their own human nature to accomplish their desires, namely murdering King Duncan. This action forever changes their mentalities and morals by its test to the strength of their ethics and the loyalty of the relationships to which they belong.

As Macbeth is told his future by the three witches, he feels intrigued to do everything in his power to get what he wants. One of the first things he was told was that he would eventually become king one day. As Macbeth found out he chose to take matters into his own hands instead of letting fate take its time. He then questions if he really wants to kill King Duncan and seeks advice from his wife Lady Macbeth. As Lady Macbeth is told that his husband is backing out of his plan she then states to “ look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t”(Act 1 Scene 5). The meaning was to persuade Macbeth into luring King Duncan by being an “innocent flower” but be the “ serpen’t that lies beneath. As Macbeth agrees with himself and his wife, Macbeth murders KIng Duncan which makes him more willing to do anything necessary in order to