Light And Darkness In Macbeth

In the play ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare, light and dark imagery is used throughout the story in order to show the difference and symbolism between good and evil. Light represents innocence, truth and purity while darkness is used to represent cruelty, guilt and corruption. Towards the end of the play, Shakespeare correlates the ideas of both lightness and darkness to portray life and death. Ultimately, they represent good and evil. Shakespeare uses these two themes to drive the plot and story forward in order to create conflict, twists and symbolism.

William Shakespeare's Macbeth is an ominous tale that illustrates the danger in violating the Great Chain of Being, the hierarchy of things in God's ordered universe. The Chain ranked all of creation and human society as well. It ranked kings above nobles and nobles above the poor. When Macbeth murdered King Duncan and assumed the throne, the Chain was violated and chaos resulted. The atmosphere of the play symbolized this resulting turmoil. Specifically, light and darkness were used to exemplify the unnatural chaos and ominous tone of the work. The role of light and the role of darkness relates to the chaos resulting from the violation of the Great Chain of Being.

This imagery is typical in a Shakespearean tragedy, where a dark atmosphere is important in developing character and understanding the play. Darkness is used in both a natural and metaphorical sense and symbolizes many things such as death, obfuscation, and evil. Through the use of the mysterious witches, and the natural darkness of night, Shakespeare effectively creates a dramatic atmosphere for the play. The witches are seen by Banquo and Macbeth to be unnatural and evil. Banquo describes them, “wither'd and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth” (A1, S3). These witches appear in darkness at the beginning of the play and Macbeth calls the day, “so foul and fair a day I have not seen” (A1, S3). This is the atmosphere in which the “unnatural” witches tell of a prophecy which goes against the natural laws of the world. Some very key scenes where great evil is done, happen under the cover of night, in a naturally dark environment. It is dark when Macbeth has the vision of a dagger, Duncan and Banquo are both murdered under cover of darkness, and Lady Macbeth sleep walks in the middle of the night even though she has a fear of darkness. Darkness is used to cover up guilty crimes, and to accentuate the sense of danger. Duncan is first murdered while he sleeps. Macbeth was hesitant to do this, until Lady Macbeth presented a way in which it could be done, and blamed on someone else. Macbeth murders Duncan in the middle of the

Without the creation of the three witches by Shakespeare, Macbeth’s downfall would have happened more gradually, and possibly completely differently.

Through the use of Dark and Light Motifs, Shakespeare highlights Macbeth’s change from a noble mental state to a reflective mental state throughout the play Macbeth.

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be/ What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;/ It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness” (1.5.2-40). This quote shows Lady Macbeth consoling Macbeth. At this point, she is not interested in doing the killing herself, she just doesn’t believe that Macbeth has the strength within himself to kill. Lady Macbeth changes, however, when she states, “That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.” (1.5.31-33). In this statement that she made, Lady Macbeth is asking to be unsexed, which means that she wishes that she was no longer a woman, but instead a man. The reason behind this is because lady Macbeth is becoming evil, and wish to kill. But it was not allowed for women to think such impure thoughts, so she wished to be a man to carry out the horrendous deeds that she wished for. The last change within Lady Macbeth is the same as Macbeth: guilt. When the doctor was talking to the gentlewoman, the gentlewoman said, “Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually. / 'Tis her command.” (5.1.16-17). Light is symbolic of innocence and purity. Whenever Lady Macbeth has a light beside her, as she does continually, she is attempting to cleanse herself of all her sins, as she views herself as

Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth is known to be a powerful, ruthless, assertive and strong woman who is capable of manipulating and persuading anyone in order to get what she wants. She is portrayed as a woman who cannot be tamed and never shows weakness until her last appearance in the play and the most important scene of the play, Act 5 scene 1. Looking back at the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth always persisted to be in absolute darkness, while in this scene she is obsessed with having a light next to her. The Gentlewoman who is watching her tells the Doctor “Why, it stood by her. She has light by her continually. T’is her command” (Shakespeare, V I 23-24). This demonstrates a dramatic change in her. The candle represents one single fragile light in the darkness of her soul. That light in her soul is a symbol of goodness and virtue. This is very revealing about Lady Macbeth, because it proves that she is not completely evil

of the light or dark. "The King comes here tonight", this is said by a

Macbeth has been viewed in a variety of ways at the end of Act 2. One of the viewpoints, Macbeth is easily manipulated by a wife he loves and acts to prove to her that he is a man, is the most valid because if Macbeth never sent Lady Macbeth the letter informing her about his encounter with the Witches, then the death of Duncan may never have occurred.

To this day, many human beings have an intense and primal fear of the dark. In his shortest tragedy Macbeth, William Shakespeare preys upon this fear by using darkness as an instrumental role in conveying recurring themes throughout the story line. Macbeth tells the tale of the corruption of a noble and courageous Scottish general named Macbeth after he is told a prophecy by three witches. As he is consumed by the drive to acquire power and propelled by his wife, Macbeth murders the king of Scotland, Duncan, in order to become king himself. Afterwards, the story is catapulted into heavy action as Macbeth and his wife quickly become intertwined in a web of murders to protect themselves.

Act 2 Scene 2 Shakespeare uses lightness and darkness to show Romeo and Juliet’s love developing. The metaphor ‘Juliet is the sun’ is illustrating how much she means to Romeo, as without the sun we wouldn’t be able to live which is proposing Romeo needs Juliet to be able to survive. Shakespeare cleverly uses a metaphor to describe Juliet as the sun instead of a simile ‘Juliet is like the sun’, for example, as if she was like it this could mean many other people could be like the sun. However, saying she is the sun is implying that she is the only one, as there is only one sun, and she is the only one to Romeo who could make him feel this way. This shows us how much Romeo feels about Juliet.

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth must separate his fate from the supernatural. Shakespeare uses poetic language along with vivid descriptions to set his scene. Attitude is not only represented by the characters’ actions, but also by descriptions of light and darkness in the play. An analysis of the dark in addition light language reveals a rift between the two: light language is used during revelations and dark language is used during times of secrecy.

William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ is one of the most known and most popular tragedies. Macbeth receives a prophecy from three witches that one day he will become King. Fueled by his ambition and by his wife, Macbeth then murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself. He is then broken by guilt and paranoia. This story has many dark moments and often talk about witches and evil and death. There are many symbols that can be taken from William Shakespeare ‘Macbeth’. This assignment will talk about Act 2, Scene 1 and will discuss the symbols of light vs darkness, the dagger and sleep, and do a complete written analysis of this selection, and consider the meaning of Psychoanalytic theoretical approach, and does it alter the way we see the text.

Macbeth shows that he relies on darkness and evil in his next speech, "Come, seeling night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day and with the bloody and invisible hand cancel and tear to pieces that great bond which keeps me pale. ”(3.2.46-49); he needs evil to remove any consequence, so he will be able to overcome his guilt. Macbeth is later on the brink of insanity when he imagines that he is seeing the ghost of Banquo. His paranoia and guilt are causing him to loose his mind. near the end of the scene, Macbeth imagines himself as a river of blood so if he was going to stop it would be harder to go back than to stay with the current.

Throughout the entire play the night environment has played an intense role in the temper of the play. The overall mood of the story is set principally from it being at night. The play is very reliant to the unknown in the night which gives the whole play a skittish setting where the reader doesn’t know what will be upcoming. For illustration, in Act 2, Scene 3 the Porter hears a continuous knocking on the door of the building. This knocking is scary because it is the middle of the night and anyone could be at that door. The uninterrupted knocking goes on for a few minutes, which builds up dread just to end up being Macduff and Lenox at the door. After this occurrence in Act 3 Banquo happens to leave before night and return after dark. He needs time to accumulate his thoughts. This leads up to something perhaps happening to Banquo as he is horseback-riding in the night which could be very insecure if an individual had plans for him to otherwise live. Macbeth hired the 3 murderers to take care of Banquo which happens, of course at night.