Theme Of Blood Imagery In Macbeth

Shakespeare personalised the text, so the audience is given access to Macbeth’s thoughts both conscious and subconscious. Throughout the whole play Macbeth was feeling pressured to determine his position of kingship by murdering the current king and anyone that stands in his way of guaranteeing that leadership role. Macbeth, generally kind-hearted in nature, felt restricted and uncomfortable about this task that his wife, Lady Macbeth, pressured him into. Lady Macbeth, a cruel, witty and overly controlling wife, questions his manhood and leadership skills to convince him to take upon this role. After committing such crimes Macbeth led into a state of depression However, strangely, Lady Macbeth was the one towards the final acts of the production to display the considerable amount of grief. She constantly had a cloud of guilt surrounding her. A motif used in this instance is Blood. Shakespeare constantly used this motif throughout the text to constantly remind the audience of the guilt and how serious their actions are. As the guilt of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth intensifies so does the use of blood throughout the text being used as an imagery technique, showing the consistent guilt laid upon them. Showing the theme guilt and the motif blood throughout the script, Shakespeare has once again achieved the power of kingship overshadowing the use of guilt for Macbeth, disregarding Lady Macbeth’s severe guilt that she encounters in the final acts of the

Blood as a motif appears early in the play. In this particular part of the play, blood is shown to represent future acts of violence. While waiting for the signal to enter the king's chamber to kill King Duncan, Macbeth spots an imaginary dagger. Macbeth eyes down the dagger, and sees blood slowly creeping its way down. He proclaims, “And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,/ Which was not so before” (2.1.58-59). Macbeth is extremely hesitant about committing a regicide against King Duncan, and when he sees the dagger, he is already imagining it covered in King Duncan's blood. This paranoia is representative of the immense presence of violence and fear in the play. At the same time, Macbeth is already feeling guilty for even contemplating whether he should kill King Duncan. Macbeth ends up following through with his and Lady Macbeth’s plan: regicide of Duncan.

Macbeth, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare and edited by Maynard Mack and Robert Boynton, displays the many ways in which guilt manifests itself and the effects it has on its victims. Throughout the play, characters including Lady Macbeth are deeply affected by guilt in ways they had never expected. Macbeth takes its audience on a journey through the process in which guilty gradually eats away at Lady Macbeth and forces her to do what she thinks is best. Though Lady Macbeth may have initially seemed unaffected by the murders she had been involved in, her desires eventually faded and were replaced with an invincible feeling of guilt which eventually took her life.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the theme of guilt and conscience is one of many explored throughout the play. Macbeth, is a well respected Scottish noble who in the beginning of the play is a man everyone looks up to; however as the play progresses he makes a number of bad decisions. Eventually, as a result of his actions he suffers guilt and this plays heavily upon his character until his personality is completely destroyed. Shakespeare uses a range of techniques in order to develop this theme such as, characters, imagery.

This provides a wide contrast as to his reaction to Duncan’s murder when Macbeth would not return to Duncan’s room because he was horrified by what he had done and feared being reminded of it. Macbeth shows no regret and only anger in the failed murder attempt of Banquo’s son. Afterward, Macbeth longs for even more blood to be shed to secure his ambitions. Macbeth continues in killing, saying, “It will have blood they say, blood will have blood” (3.4. 124), to justify his increasing number of murders, for he thinks his conscience cannot be relieved.With each murder, Macbeth becomes more brutal, eventually murdering even the innocent wife and children of Macduff. When a frightened servant comes to tell Macbeth of the approach of ten thousand English soldiers, Macbeth is enraged by the servant's face, which is pale with fear. He tells the servant, “Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, / Thou lily-liver'd boy" (5.3.14-15). Macbeth is mocking the servant; he means that the only way the boy can even look courageous is by pricking it to make it bleed. Afterwards, he becomes distracted, talking and giving orders to several people at once, making incoherent commands that show the worsening instability of his mind. As the critic Frank Kermode once stated “ Macbeth loses his distinctive humanity (Thrasher, 77)”. This leads Macbeth to the doom that awaits him for in the end when the only way to rid

Blood, whether it be the color, smell, or importance is vital to life itself. However, almost exceeding the importance of physical blood is the imagery of blood found throughout William Shakespeare's, Macbeth. The continual presence of blood in Shakespeare's, Macbeth is constantly reminding the audience how significant the consequences of the characters actions are. The imagery of blood in Shakespeare's, Macbeth represents the guilt felt by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth due to their brutal actions, thus developing the theme ‘the corrupting power of unchecked ambition’. As their guilt grows, so does the importance of the blood imagery and how it haunts both characters, staining their soul.

Firstly, the person in Macbeth that was a serious victim of guilt was Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth went more insane than Macbeth even though she did not kill anyone. She was overwhelmed by guilt causing her conscience to see creepy fake illusions. The unnamed narrator insanity was caused by beating of the old man hideous heart and his evil eye, both characters use symbolism to symbolizes the malicious of both the old mans that ruined their lives. Lady Macbeth is scared when she sees her hands covered in blood, when Lady Macbeth did the murder she did not believe that it would harm her afterwards but it did which made her lose her mind. Lady Macbeth says “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two: why/ then ‘tis time to don’t. Hell is murky. Fie my lord, / fie! a solider and afeard? What need we hear who know/ it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who/ would have thought the old man to have had so much/ blood in him? (5.1 32-37). Lady Macbeth feels responsible for Macbeths insanity; with his insanity she also went insane. Lady Macbeth sleeps walks and starts washing her hands without water unconscious. The blood on her hand symbolizes her guilt and Duncan’s blood. She also feels like what she is going through is like Hell,

The story illustrates the act of murder has changed Macbeth’s character. But it no longer does the blood connote an image of ambition; it now symbolizes guilt, remorse, and an entry into the gates of hell from which no one can return. Macbeth laments that not even all the water in the sink will wash the blood off his hands, he is beginning to realize the immensity of his crime, and that he has done something truly evil. Macbeth say, “It will have blood,they say. Blood will have blood./ By magot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth/ The secret’st man of blood./ What is the night? (Act III, Scene 4, Lines 122-126). The imagined blood haunts both characters, following them until their death.

iv. 136-140). From this quote it can be inferred that Macbeth is concerned for himself because of all of the crimes that he is committed and is scared that people are coming after him. He has already stepped in the river of blood but cannot go back because he is already too deep and plans to continue farther. Holding the guilt of killing the most beloved King and the thought that people are coming after him, drives Macbeth to making poor decisions to protect himself and the use of blood helps the reader to see how insane Macbeth really is. Macbeth is not the only character in the play who goes insane because of guilt, his wife Lady Macbeth too goes insane with holding the guilt of ruining lives of innocent people. At one point she feels so guilty she begins to have hallucinations and even starts sleepwalking and talking. During the night when she was sleepwalking she tried to remove the blood that has stained her hands and becomes extremely paranoid that the blood is not coming off. It can be inferred that even though Lady Macbeth only helped to plan the murders she never actually kill someone, but she still carries the guilt as if she did. Shakespeare is trying to showcase with the motif of blood that no matter what type of crime is committed there is still guilt and

After the murder of Duncan, he delivers the bloody daggers to Lady Macbeth which in a way surprises her, and she ends up leaving them next to the guards, which makes it look like they were responsible for the murder of the loyal king Duncan. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth begins going crazy, constantly crying about the “blood” on her hands that will not come off. The blood symbolizes the guilt that she is encountering because she cannot clean her soul of what she has done, and even the doctor doesn't understand what is going on with her, they just think she is crazy. A few acts later it gets to the point where she eventually commits suicide, just because she was unable to deal with the guilt. (The Theme of Guilt). Several quotes throughout this play can help relate to the destruction that guilt causes. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say! – One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't, – Hell is murky! – Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? – Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Macbeth, act 5 scene 1). This quote is showing Lady Macbeth being entrapped by the guilt of the murder, which causes her to sleep walk and talk about it in a sort of dull way every night. “But screw your courage to the sticking place, And we'll not fail.” (Lady Macbeth, act 1 scene 7). Another quote by Lady Macbeth when she wanted Macbeth to continue on

Macbeth kills Duncan which creates his guilt: “There’s no such thing./It is the bloody business which informs/ Thus to mine eyes” (II. i. 59-61). In this case, blood signifies Macbeth’s guilt. Macbeth gets this guilt from planning to kill Duncan, even though Duncan is the king.

These multiple themes include guilt, violence, and family. Blood is used often to represent other things besides the obvious, death. First, both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth feel guilt throughout their killing spree, though they try their best not to show one another. Macbeth asks himself, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” and answers with no, as he knows that nothing can be done now that him and his wife have plotted against and killed King Duncan.

Macbeth instantly feels remorse over his killing of Duncan as he can only look at his bloody hands and say, “This is a sorry sight” (2.2.21). He sees his evil actions as wrong, although guilt is on the drugged guards as Duncan’s is smeared blood on them, imposing them with false guilt. Lady Macbeth’s guilt comes in sleepwalking as her parts in the murders had “stained” her and that “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh” (5.1.35,36). She couldn’t find relief from any of the murders, especially Macduff’s family’s murder seen as Lady Macbeth alludes to this with, “The Thane of Fife had a wife” (5.1.30).

This quote depicts Macbeth hallucinating as a result of the stress caused by the murder he is about to commit (the “bloody business”). Originally, Macbeth imagines a dagger floating in the air directly in front of him with drops of blood gradually appearing and covering both the blade and handle. He eventually comes to the realization the dagger is just a figment of his imagination and the thought of killing Duncan is conjuring up these unnerving images. Subsequently, the king’s imminent death, in conjunction with the presence of blood on the dagger clearly illustrates how the image of blood is represented in this quote. By appearing on the dagger itself, blood foreshadows the untimely demise of Duncan, as it will be his blood staining the dagger which took his life. Furthermore, by referring to the murder of Duncan as “bloody business”, the image of blood is once again reinforced, and in addition, it highlights an immoral aspect of Macbeth’s character, as such a savage murder reveals a ruthless side of him which we have only witnessed on the battlefield (I.ii.18-25).

Once Macbeth finally comes to terms with the only option he should take after consulting with his psychotic love, he decides that once the king enters his domain it will be the last place he ever visits. After killing the king, Macbeth proceeds to kill his chamberlains who he will place the blame on afterwards. Realization hits Macbeth after looking down at his murderous hands and seeing the king’s blood blanket his skin. Guilt washes over Macbeth after realizing that what he had just commit will forever haunt him. The king will never come back to life just as Macbeth will always be aware he is the reason for that calamitous