Use Of Imagery Of Blood And Water 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

In Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, many motifs are used to accentuate many different themes in the text. These themes are used to further the meaning of the play, as well as to give another definition to the characters in it. Macbeth is a highly ranked military general who is very brave and courageous. In the beginning of the play, three witches come to Macbeth and tell him a prophecy, which tells him that he is destined to become king. Macbeth trusts this prophecy and goes on a tyrannical rampage to become king. Blood is one of many motifs that Shakespeare constantly uses to accentuate many ideas which occur in the play. Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare utilizes blood in order to demonstrate that even if someone is not caught for an immoral action, the guilt they feel and the liability they experience will still punish them.

     In his masterpiece Macbeth, William Shakespeare employs many motifs, but none more often than blood and water. The play includes many images of blood and water to show the characters' attitudes toward their own development of guilt. Both motifs mature and change in their meaning along with the setting and mood of the play. “Without an understanding of the blood and water symbolism, the play cannot be completely understood”(Scott 14). Blood symbolizes honor, treachery, and guilt. Water, in contrast, symbolizes cleanliness and purity of the soul, as though all it takes is water to wash guilt away.

     The second type of literary device that Shakespeare uses in Macbeth is symbolism. The predominant symbol is blood and is used as an effective method to describe the theme of the play. Not only does blood symbolize bravery, it is also a means of showing treachery and treason and probably most importantly, guilt. One example of bravery occurs when the captain says, "For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name--/Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,/Which smoked with bloody execution"(1.2.16-18). Soon after this blood changes into a representation of treachery and treason. Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to "Make thick my blood,/ Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse" (1.5. 43-44). She asks the spirits to take away compassion and make her remorseless for the actions she is about to take. Also, when Ross asks, "Is’t known who did this more than bloody deed?" (2.4.22), he tries to figure out who performed the disloyal act of murdering the king. Blood is also used many times to express the guilt-ridden consciences of the characters. For instance, Macbeth says, "What hands are here? Ha! They pluck out mine own eyes!/ Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash the blood/ Clean from my hand?" (2.3.58-60). Macbeth obviously feels guilty for killing Duncan in cold blood. Later in the play, Lady 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.

William Shakespeare enhances his play, Macbeth, by including a variety of motifs. “In a literary work, a motif can be seen as an image, sound, action or other figures that have a symbolic significance and contributes toward the development of theme,” (Literarydevices.net). In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses sleep, blood, hallucination, darkness and many other motifs to show importance in the play. Beginning with the battle between the Scots and the Norwegian invaders, blood is one of the most significant motifs that are presented in Macbeth. Shakespeare uses blood to symbolize power, courage and heroism as well as, death, cruelty and guilt.

William Shakespeare uses different techniques to increase the excitement and intensity in his plays. Macbeth is the dramatic play written by William Shakespeare has many good examples of imagery, especially that of blood. William Shakespeare’s play about Macbeth is a story of ambition and intrigue. The ambition creates actions that lead to the breakdown of the main character and which drove

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

     The longest running tradition in medicine, bloodletting, was a widely accepted practice with a three-thousand year-old history from the ancient Egyptians to the late 19th century. At that time, physicians thought that disease was a curse caused by the supernatural. It was a common idea that blood carried the vital force of the body and was the seat of the soul. Anything from body weaknesses to insanity were attributed to a defect in this vital fluid. Bloodletting was a method for balancing other fluids in the body and cleansing it of impurities. Shakespeare takes the same knowledge of blood and applies it to “Macbeth” in which the connotations not only foretell one’s glory but also one’s guilt.

Blood is another motif throughout the play. The language used to describe Macbeth’s anguished state is extraordinarily effective in terms of imagery and detail. When Macbeth looks at his hands and thinks they are a “sorry sight” and his hand “will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red” (2.2.58). Shakespeare uses personification to manipulate Macbeth’s bloody hands as witnesses to the murder when Lady Macbeth urges him to “wash this filthy witness from your hands” (2.2.50).

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).

In Shakespeare's Macbeth a play, a man named Macbeth goes through a great transformation; Macbeth goes from being a heroic general in the king's army to an assassin and a tyrant. The theme of the play is never give into evil because it destroys no matter what the benefits are. Blood Imagery is very important in the play; it shows Macbeth's evil ambition in the beginning, middle, and end of the play.

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare,there are several signs of imagery using the word "blood". The word "blood" is used to show a mixture of things, but often it is used to distinguish pain and death. One of the first references to "blood" is when a Sergeant is talking to Duncan about a battle going on. The Sergeant makes a comment about Macbeth; "Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel, which smoked with bloody execution, Like valour's minion carved out his passage. " This quote from the play is an example of how great of a swordsman Macbeth was, he was very brave and had a lot of courage.

Lady Macbeth starts this off when she asks the spirits to "make thick [her] blood"(1.5.50). What she is saying by this, is that she wants to make herself insensitive and remorseless for the deed she is hoping to commit. However, she forces Macbeth to do the deed. Right before killing Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger floating in the air leading him to Duncan?s room and he sees "on the blade and dudgeon gouts of blood"(2.1.58), indicating that the knife has been viciously stabbed into someone. This is a Lady Macbeth knows that the evidence of blood is a treacherous symbol, and knows it will deflect the guilt from her and Macbeth to the servants when she says "If he do bleed, I?ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt"(2.2.71-73).

Symbolism is the practice of representing peoples, places, objects, and ideas by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. Most great works of literature seem to include some degree of symbolism. Accordingly, Shakespeare’s Macbeth exhibits a great deal of symbolism. One heavily used symbol is that of blood. In Macbeth, blood symbolizes murder and guilt, and Shakespeare uses this symbol to characterize Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.