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Home › Drama Criticism › Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 0 )

Macbeth . . . is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare’s plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce extremes, a war of opposite natures which of them shall destroy the other. There is nothing but what has a violent end or violent beginnings. The lights and shades are laid on with a determined hand; the transitions from triumph to despair, from the height of terror to the repose of death, are sudden and startling; every passion brings in its fellow-contrary, and the thoughts pitch and jostle against each other as in the dark. The whole play is an unruly chaos of strange and forbidden things, where the ground rocks under our feet. Shakespear’s genius here took its full swing, and trod upon the farthest bounds of nature and passion.

—William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays

Macbeth completes William Shakespeare’s great tragic quartet while expanding, echoing, and altering key elements of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear into one of the most terrifying stage experiences. Like Hamlet, Macbeth treats the  consequences  of  regicide,  but  from  the  perspective  of  the  usurpers,  not  the  dispossessed.  Like  Othello,  Macbeth   centers  its  intrigue  on  the  intimate  relations  of  husband  and  wife.  Like  Lear,  Macbeth   explores  female  villainy,  creating in Lady Macbeth one of Shakespeare’s most complex, powerful, and frightening woman characters. Different from Hamlet and Othello, in which the tragic action is reserved for their climaxes and an emphasis on cause over effect, Macbeth, like Lear, locates the tragic tipping point at the play’s outset to concentrate on inexorable consequences. Like Othello, Macbeth, Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, achieves an almost unbearable intensity by eliminating subplots, inessential characters, and tonal shifts to focus almost exclusively on the crime’s devastating impact on husband and wife.

What is singular about Macbeth, compared to the other three great Shakespearean tragedies, is its villain-hero. If Hamlet mainly executes rather than murders,  if  Othello  is  “more  sinned  against  than  sinning,”  and  if  Lear  is  “a  very foolish fond old man” buffeted by surrounding evil, Macbeth knowingly chooses  evil  and  becomes  the  bloodiest  and  most  dehumanized  of  Shakespeare’s tragic protagonists. Macbeth treats coldblooded, premeditated murder from the killer’s perspective, anticipating the psychological dissection and guilt-ridden expressionism that Feodor Dostoevsky will employ in Crime and Punishment . Critic Harold Bloom groups the protagonist as “the culminating figure  in  the  sequence  of  what  might  be  called  Shakespeare’s  Grand  Negations: Richard III, Iago, Edmund, Macbeth.” With Macbeth, however, Shakespeare takes us further inside a villain’s mind and imagination, while daringly engaging  our  sympathy  and  identification  with  a  murderer.  “The  problem  Shakespeare  gave  himself  in  Macbeth  was  a  tremendous  one,”  Critic  Wayne  C. Booth has stated.

Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him—and  destroy  him,  not  only  physically  and  emotionally,  as  the  Greeks  destroyed their heroes, but also morally and intellectually. As if this were not difficult enough as a dramatic hurdle, while transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero—that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than detest him and will be relieved to see him out of his misery rather than pleased to see him destroyed.

Unlike Richard III, Iago, or Edmund, Macbeth is less a virtuoso of villainy or an amoral nihilist than a man with a conscience who succumbs to evil and obliterates the humanity that he is compelled to suppress. Macbeth is Shakespeare’s  greatest  psychological  portrait  of  self-destruction  and  the  human  capacity for evil seen from inside with an intimacy that horrifies because of our forced identification with Macbeth.

Although  there  is  no  certainty  in  dating  the  composition  or  the  first performance  of  Macbeth,   allusions  in  the  play  to  contemporary  events  fix the  likely  date  of  both  as  1606,  shortly  after  the  completion  and  debut  of  King Lear. Scholars have suggested that Macbeth was acted before James I at Hampton  Court  on  August  7,  1606,  during  the  royal  visit  of  King  Christian IV of Denmark and that it may have been especially written for a royal performance. Its subject, as well as its version of Scottish history, suggest an effort both to flatter and to avoid offending the Scottish king James. Macbeth is a chronicle play in which Shakespeare took his major plot elements from Raphael  Holinshed’s  Chronicles  of  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland  (1587),  but  with  significant  modifications.  The  usurping  Macbeth’s  decade-long  (and  largely  successful)  reign  is  abbreviated  with  an  emphasis  on  the  internal  and external destruction caused by Macbeth’s seizing the throne and trying to hold onto it. For the details of King Duncan’s death, Shakespeare used Holinshed’s  account  of  the  murder  of  an  earlier  king  Duff  by  Donwald,  who cast suspicion on drunken servants and whose ambitious wife played a significant role in the crime. Shakespeare also eliminated Banquo as the historical Macbeth’s co-conspirator in the murder to promote Banquo’s innocence and nobility in originating a kingly line from which James traced his legitimacy. Additional prominence is also given to the Weird Sisters, whom Holinshed only mentions in their initial meeting of Macbeth on the heath. The prophetic warning “beware Macduff” is attributed to “certain wizards in whose words Macbeth put great confidence.” The importance of the witches and  the  occult  in  Macbeth   must  have  been  meant  to  appeal  to  a  king  who  produced a treatise, Daemonologie (1597), on witch-craft.

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The uncanny sets the tone of moral ambiguity from the play’s outset as the three witches gather to encounter Macbeth “When the battle’s lost and won” in an inverted world in which “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Nothing in the play will be what it seems, and the tragedy results from the confusion and  conflict  between  the  fair—honor,  nobility,  duty—and  the  foul—rank  ambition and bloody murder. Throughout the play nature reflects the disorder and violence of the action. Opening with thunder and lightning, the drama is set in a Scotland contending with the rebellion of the thane (feudal lord) of Cawdor, whom the fearless and courageous Macbeth has vanquished on the battlefield. The play, therefore, initially establishes Macbeth as a dutiful and trusted vassal of the king, Duncan of Scotland, deserving to be rewarded with the rebel’s title for restoring peace and order in the realm. “What he hath lost,” Duncan declares, “noble Macbeth hath won.” News of this honor reaches Macbeth through the witches, who greet him both as the thane of Cawdor and “king hereafter” and his comrade-in-arms Banquo as one who “shalt get kings, though thou be none.” Like the ghost in Hamlet , the  Weird  Sisters  are  left  purposefully  ambiguous  and  problematic.  Are  they  agents  of  fate  that  determine  Macbeth’s  doom,  predicting  and  even  dictating  the  inevitable,  or  do  they  merely  signal  a  latency  in  Macbeth’s  ambitious character?

When he is greeted by the king’s emissaries as thane of Cawdor, Macbeth begins to wonder if the first predictions of the witches came true and what will come of the second of “king hereafter”:

This supernatural soliciting Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, Why hath it given me earnest of success Commencing in a truth? 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 murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man that function Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is But what is not.

Macbeth  will  be  defined  by  his  “horrible  imaginings,”  by  his  considerable  intellectual and imaginative capacity both to understand what he knows to be true and right and his opposed desires and their frightful consequences. Only Hamlet has as fully a developed interior life and dramatized mental processes as  Macbeth  in  Shakespeare’s  plays.  Macbeth’s  ambition  is  initially  checked  by his conscience and by his fear of the unforeseen consequence of violating moral  laws.  Shakespeare  brilliantly  dramatizes  Macbeth’s  mental  conflict in near stream of consciousness, associational fashion:

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly. If th’assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease, success: that but this blow Might be the be all and the end all, here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases We still have judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions which, being taught, return To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice Commends th’ingredients of our poison’d chalice To our own lips. He’s here in double trust: First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, Strong both against the deed; then, as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door, Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against The deep damnation of his taking-off, And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other.

Macbeth’s “spur” comes in the form of Lady Macbeth, who plays on her husband’s selfimage of courage and virility to commit to the murder. She also reveals her own shocking cancellation of gender imperatives in shaming her husband into action, in one of the most shocking passages of the play:

. . . 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 his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this.

Horrified  at  his  wife’s  resolve  and  cold-blooded  calculation  in  devising  the  plot,  Macbeth  urges  his  wife  to  “Bring  forth  menchildren  only,  /  For  thy  undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males,” but commits “Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.”

With the decision to kill the king taken, the play accelerates unrelentingly through a succession of powerful scenes: Duncan’s and Banquo’s murders, the banquet scene in which Banquo’s ghost appears, Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking, and Macbeth’s final battle with Macduff, Thane of Fife. Duncan’s offstage murder  contrasts  Macbeth’s  “horrible  imaginings”  concerning  the  implications and Lady Macbeth’s chilling practicality. Macbeth’s question, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” is answered by his wife: “A little water clears us of this deed; / How easy is it then!” The knocking at the door of the castle, ominously signaling the revelation of the crime, prompts the play’s one comic respite in the Porter’s drunken foolery that he is at the door of “Hell’s Gate” controlling the entrance of the damned. With the fl ight of Duncan’s sons, who fear for their lives, causing them to be suspected as murderers, Macbeth is named king, and the play’s focus shifts to Macbeth’s keeping and consolidating the power he has seized. Having gained what the witches prophesied, Macbeth next tries to prevent their prediction that Banquo’s descendants will reign by setting assassins to kill Banquo and his son, Fleance. The plan goes awry, and Fleance escapes, leaving Macbeth again at the mercy of the witches’ prophecy. His psychic breakdown is dramatized by his seeing Banquo’s ghost occupying Macbeth’s place at the banquet. Pushed to  the  edge  of  mental  collapse,  Macbeth  steels  himself  to  meet  the  witches  again to learn what is in store for him: “Iam in blood,” he declares, “Stepp’d in so far that, should Iwade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

The witches reassure him that “none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” and that he will never be vanquished until “Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him.” Confident that he is invulnerable, Macbeth  responds  to  the  rebellion  mounted  by  Duncan’s  son  Malcolm  and  Macduff, who has joined him in England, by ordering the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her children. Macbeth has progressed from a murderer in fulfillment of the witches predictions to a murderer (of Banquo) in order to subvert their predictions and then to pointless butchery that serves no other purpose than as an exercise in willful destruction. Ironically, Macbeth, whom his wife feared  was  “too  full  o’  the  milk  of  human  kindness  /  To  catch  the  nearest  way” to serve his ambition, displays the same cold calculation that frightened him  about  his  wife,  while  Lady  Macbeth  succumbs  psychically  to  her  own  “horrible  imaginings.”  Lady  Macbeth  relives  the  murder  as  she  sleepwalks,  Shakespeare’s version of the workings of the unconscious. The blood in her tormented  conscience  that  formerly  could  be  removed  with  a  little  water  is  now a permanent noxious stain in which “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten.” Women’s cries announcing her offstage death are greeted by Macbeth with detached indifference:

I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a nightshriek, and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t. Ihave supp’d full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.

Macbeth reveals himself here as an emotional and moral void. Confirmation that “The Queen, my lord, is dead” prompts only the bitter comment, “She should have died hereafter.” For Macbeth, life has lost all meaning, refl ected in the bleakest lines Shakespeare ever composed:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Time and the world that Macbeth had sought to rule are revealed to him as empty and futile, embodied in a metaphor from the theater with life as a histrionic, talentless actor in a tedious, pointless play.

Macbeth’s final testing comes when Malcolm orders his troops to camoufl  age  their  movement  by  carrying  boughs  from  Birnam  Woods  in  their march toward Dunsinane and from Macduff, whom he faces in combat and reveals that he was “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d,” that is, born by cesarean section and therefore not “of woman born.” This revelation, the final fulfillment of the witches’ prophecies, causes Macbeth to fl ee, but he is prompted  by  Macduff’s  taunt  of  cowardice  and  order  to  surrender  to  meet  Macduff’s challenge, despite knowing the deadly outcome:

Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Macbeth  returns  to  the  world  of  combat  where  his  initial  distinctions  were  honorably earned and tragically lost.

The play concludes with order restored to Scotland, as Macduff presents Macbeth’s severed head to Malcolm, who is hailed as king. Malcolm may assert his control and diminish Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as “this dead butcher and his fiendlike queen,” but the audience knows more than that. We know what  Malcolm  does  not,  that  it  will  not  be  his  royal  line  but  Banquo’s  that  will eventually rule Scotland, and inevitably another round of rebellion and murder is to come. We also know in horrifying human terms the making of a butcher and a fiend who refuse to be so easily dismissed as aberrations.

Macbeth Oxford Lecture by Emma Smith
Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

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Symbolism of Blood as Realization of Guilt in "Macbeth"

Symbolism of Blood as Realization of Guilt in "Macbeth" essay

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Blood Symbolism in “Macbeth” by Shakespeare

Authors often utilize symbols to signify the importance of events, objects, or relationships in their works. Indeed, the majority of the great poetic or literature works use some degree of symbolism to allow readers to visualize the writers’ messages. Correspondingly, in the play Macbeth , Shakespeare uses symbolism to portray the primary theme of fate. The blood acts as a sign of guilt and murder, which Shakespeare employs to illustrate the personalities of Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth.

Blood symbolizes the feelings of murder after Macbeth kills Duncan. Shakespeare uses this symbol to exhibit Macbeth’s guilt and horror for his crime. Macbeth experiences disturbing emotions after killing Duncan as he explains that the idea of murder or the sight of blood is awful, which leads to tears in his eyes (Shakespeare 19). This confession demonstrates the magnitude of Macbeth’s shock, which surpasses his expectations before committing the murder. He is not only perturbed but also exhibited the emotions of extreme guilt. Macbeth feels culpable for murdering Banquo, and he confirms his regret when he describes the ghosts haunting him (Shakespeare 35). Besides, blood symbolism shows how Lady Macbeth’s perceptions towards murder change with the plot’s progression. Initially, she effortlessly cleans blood from her hands, disregarding any sense of guilt. Nevertheless, at the end of the play, Lady Macbeth seems astonished to see her husband’s guards covered with blood (Shakespeare 59). She sees a spot of blood on her hand and struggles to wash it, demonstrating the incurable guilt for the murders committed during Macbeth’s leadership.

Blood serves as a persistent sign of the characters’ emotional development. Although Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were comfortable with killing to inherit the reign, they later experience immeasurable guilt due to their actions. Therefore, blood symbolism shows the state of despair, which defines the main characters’ fate owing to their selfish ambitions, thus enabling readers to compare and contrast the change of their emotions as the plot unfolds.

Shakespeare, William. “Macbeth.” Shakespeare Out Loud , 2001. Web.

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The Role and Evolution of Blood Imagery in William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’

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Imagery and its Evocative Power in “Macbeth”

Often, in literature, imagery is used to depict different pictures or themes in the reader’s mind. Macbeth is a play written by the Elizabethan poet, actor, and playwright William Shakespeare, who is renowned as one of the greatest writers of the English language and as the greatest playwright of his era. Just like many of his famous pieces of work, Shakespeare used considerable amounts of literary devices that brought the story to life.

Imagery is used throughout literature to help the readers create ideas in their minds, like pictures. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare’s use of imagery symbolizing blood all the way through the play is used to portray certain characters’ influences and events.

Blood is depicted in everyone’s mind as a symbol of death or hurt, which gives Shakespeare a platform to create representations in the reader’s head. In Macbeth, the main character, Macbeth, is found in this realm of powerful figures. Macbeth had been given multiple prophecies, and one was that he would be the King. To fulfill this prophecy, Macbeth’s decision to kill the King leaves him with immense emotional instability and guilt. In the play, Macbeth expresses, “I see thee still And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood.” This represents the guilt Macbeth is experiencing, saying that he still sees the blood on his knife and the blood in the dungeon. The guilt is easily symbolized by the blood in this because after he committed the crime, he still saw the blood, and it was bothering him severely.

Interpreting the Blood Motif and its Implications

The prophecies drive Macbeth to keep killing for power, thus creating more imagery of blood and animals with ravenous instincts. Other characters use blood to depict the ruthlessness of the murders or characterizations of their dead bodies. But in Act 3, Macbeth says the famous line, “Blood will have Blood.” This quote is Macbeth introducing many different possible interpretations for not only the play but for real life too. This could be Macbeth foreshadowing his own death, conveying that a murderer will always be discovered after someone commits a crime, or even just the rendition of the major principles of karma.

This can also introduce a sort of war feel, adding to the tensions from the suspicions towards Macbeth’s murders. Macbeth has not only been portrayed as a murderer throughout the drama but also a tyrant because of the grasp he attempted to have on his people and power. Macduff yells, “Bleed, bleed, poor country.” Scotland is shown as bleeding to represent its upcoming death because of Macbeth. Macbeth killed the beloved previous King and became hated as the King himself.

In conclusion, Shakespeare’s use of blood imagery is used in the play all the way through, making mental correlations in the reader’s mind subconsciously. Only a good writer can paint a mental picture in their reader’s mind with such simplicity but also complexity. Shakespeare used blood as a symbol of more than just guilt, death, hurt, revenge, and murder. Using the word blood in more than 30 different lines. There were many different ways blood symbolized themes and emotions.

  • Shakespeare, W. (1623). Macbeth . London: First Folio.
  • Greenblatt, S. (2005). Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare . W.W. Norton & Company.

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    By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 25, 2020 • ( 0 ) Macbeth . . . is done upon a stronger and more systematic principle of contrast than any other of Shakespeare's plays. It moves upon the verge of an abyss, and is a constant struggle between life and death. The action is desperate and the reaction is dreadful. It is a huddling together of fierce ...

  9. Symbolism of Blood as Realization of Guilt in "Macbeth"

    The mental state of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are both greatly deteriorated by the sight of blood. Multiple times throughout the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would hallucinate and see blood on their hands, symbolising their guilt for the murders they have committed.

  10. Blood Symbolism in "Macbeth" by Shakespeare

    Blood symbolizes the feelings of murder after Macbeth kills Duncan. Shakespeare uses this symbol to exhibit Macbeth's guilt and horror for his crime. Macbeth experiences disturbing emotions after killing Duncan as he explains that the idea of murder or the sight of blood is awful, which leads to tears in his eyes (Shakespeare 19).

  11. Blood in Macbeth by Shakespeare

    Blood as a Motif in Macbeth. One of the first appearances of blood as a motif occurs when Macbeth is waiting outside Duncan's bedchamber before the murder. While Macbeth waits, driven by ambition ...

  12. Essay about The Symbol Of Blood In Macbeth

    Good Essays. 1109 Words. 5 Pages. Open Document. The Symbol Of Blood In Macbeth. Blood is something that we need to live. So it is clearly understood when Shakespeare uses the symbol of blood to represent murder, betrayal, and death, to show all of the evil that was going on. It is a symbol that was used the most in the play Macbeth, and had ...

  13. Blood Stained Hands In Macbeth: [Essay Example], 521 words

    Published: Mar 14, 2024. Blood stained hands are a powerful symbol in Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth, representing the guilt and moral decay that plagues the titular character throughout the play. From the very beginning, Macbeth's hands are metaphorically stained with the blood of King Duncan, setting off a chain of events that lead to further ...

  14. Blood In Macbeth Essay

    Blood In Macbeth Essay. Good Essays. 1293 Words. 6 Pages. Open Document. William Shakespeare's play Macbeth is about a struggle for power in Scotland. Macbeth, the main character, gets prophecies from three witches about his future accomplishments that will come to him. One of his prophecies is that Macbeth will become king, Macbeth hearing ...

  15. The Role and Evolution of Blood Imagery in William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'

    Essay Example: Imagery and its Evocative Power in "Macbeth" Often, in literature, imagery is used to depict different pictures or themes in the reader's mind. ... But in Act 3, Macbeth says the famous line, "Blood will have Blood." This quote is Macbeth introducing many different possible interpretations for not only the play but for real ...

  16. The Theme Of Blood In Macbeth

    The connotation that Macbeth associates with blood switches from a primary motivator to a guilty reminder. Prior to Duncan's murder, Macbeth witnessed a floating dagger covered with blood (II.i.33). Macbeth had experienced violence and Blood is also used as a reminder of the guilt and trauma from the murder of King Duncan, the guards and Banquo.

  17. Symbol Of Blood In Macbeth Essay

    The symbol of blood is very important in Macbeth. It symbolizes fear, guilt, insanity and also evil. Macbeth would do almost anything to become King. Since the three witches predicted that what was going to be a part of his future. Macbeth and lady Macbeth both became crazy because of the deadly deeds that they committed.

  18. Blood In Macbeth Essay

    Blood In Macbeth Essay. Blood is a recurring motif in Shakespeare's Macbeth. It is constantly used to describe or intensity murder or an act of treachery. The excessive use of blood in the play also relates to the guilt and change faced by numerous characters. Blood is seen or mentioned in every act in the play and this is not a coincidence.

  19. What Does Blood Symbolize in Macbeth

    It led up to Lady Macbeth killing herself, with all the guilt and regret it brought upon her. To conclude, the symbol of blood is used as a symbol of corruption, guilt, and remorse . In most of Shakespeare plays blood symbolizes murder and other acts like it, but in the end it ultimately brings guilt upon the characters.

  20. Unveiling the Significance: Blood Symbolism in Macbeth

    Symbolism of Blood in Macbeth Essay 1. Introduction. In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, blood is a recurring symbol that represents various themes and motifs throughout the narrative.The symbolism of blood is used extensively in the play as a metaphor to convey Macbeth's guilt, the consequences of his actions, and the overall theme of moral corruption.

  21. Macbeth Blood Essay

    Bloody Macbeth The word "blood" is exercised repeatedly in Macbeth. Macbeth has a bloody beginning and a bloody ending. King Duncan is the first to speak of blood when he makes a comment on an injured captain's appearance (1.2.1). The last time blood is mentioned is in the concluding battle between Macbeth and Macduff (5.8.5-7).