Examples Of Blood Imagery In Macbeth

Guilt. An emotion unique to humans; that feeling in our gut that permeates throughout our body when we feel responsible for any wrongdoing, whether it is in our control or not. This common, yet complex, human experience is explored in Shakespeare’s Macbeth by using blood imagery to symbolize Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s guilt. Blood is often associated with pain, wounds and death; however, blood can also be viewed as a life force, nourishment and a rejuvenator. These two conflicting interpretations of blood mirror and contrast between the two main characters. A seemingly strong character, Lady Macbeth, crumbles under guilt while an initially weak character, Macbeth, only seems to grow stronger and more confident from his guilt. By the end of

the play, both these characters have reversed their initial roles. This peculiar switch suggests that while guilt may breakdown a person and leave them in a state of utter helplessness, it also has the power to strengthen and motivate a person beyond what it is thought possible of that person.

Initial appearances can often be misleading.

On the surface, Lady Macbeth is shown to be a cold and manipulating character who lacks in compassion. However, just like blood, there are multiple interpretations of Lady Macbeth, and small moments unveil crucial information about her internal state. Her retort after the murder of Duncan that she would have carried out the murder herself “had he not resembled (her) father as he slept" [Act 2, Scene 3, 13-14] reveals that she has some emotional attachment to her father, giving a glimpse of the slight humanity that remains within her. Similarly, when mocking Macbeth on his unwillingness to carry out their plan, she proclaims that she has breastfed a child before and knows “how tender `tis to love the babe that milks (her)” [Act 1, Scene 7, 55]. While in this context, she goes on to talk about how she would murder the child for the plan to carry out, it cannot be ignored that Lady Macbeth, in fact, has nursed a child (possibly of her own) whom she possessed a motherly instinct for and affectionally cared for. Both these incidents reveal another dimension of Lady Macbeth: the compassion and tenderness she so desperately wishes to get rid of earlier on in the

play.

While these qualities are much harder to identify, their existence allows for a better understanding of how Lady Macbeth changes from a character who believes “a little water could clear (her) of (her) deed” [Act 2, Scene 2, 70] to someone who feels as if “all the perfumes of Arabia” [Act 5, Scene 1, 44-45] cannot cover up her wrongdoings.

When Lady Macbeth calls on to the spirits to “unsex” [Act, Scene 5, 40] her, to get rid of her so called feminine traits, she only manages to bury them down within her, not get rid of them completely, presenting a vulnerability for guilt to attack and consume her. Furthermore, by asking to make “thick (her) blood” [Act 1, Scene 5, 43], she merely pleads to contaminate her own blood, thus not changing the fact that she still has blood from a literal standpoint. Similarly, she only contaminates her ability to feel guilt, she does not change the fact that guilt is still present within her. This is the nature of guilt, it finds the vulnerabilities in a person and attacks them there, giving the choice to either face it or crumble under it. Shakespeare suggests that suppressing the factors that make up our human consciousness does not prevent guilt from attacking them. The analogy can be drawn to blood circulating through the body; it is inevitable that blood will reach to all parts of the body and resisting this process only does harm to a person. Mirroring this is guilt, it is inevitable that we will feel guilt and while its effects vary from

person to person, it can be agreed that resisting only harms the person until all control is lost, and then strikes like a vicious beast. Thus, in her final days, Lady Macbeth’s compassion filled inner consciousness does not allow her to avoid feeling guilt, eventually returning in a way that she cannot overcome, for “unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles” [Act 5, Scene 1, 63-64].

But this still leaves the case of Macbeth; his experience with guilt is quite the opposite of Lady Macbeth’s. His confidence and increasing ruthlessness as a ruler seems unusual, especially when considering his passive and submissive nature earlier in the play. Despite this, there are recounts made in the play of Macbeth once being a courageous and honorable commander who is “well… deserve(d)” [Act 1, Scene 2, 16] of his titles. From an obvious standpoint, war builds a resiliency in Macbeth, something Lady Macbeth never fully achieves. Furthermore, identifying the origin of his confidence and ruthlessness as a ruler requires delving deeper into his experiences as a soldier. War has some severe repercussions; the atrocities a person witnesses and commits during these times can have a long-lasting impact on an individual. It is almost absurd to believe Macbeth became a successful commander without committing atrocities of his own during these times of survival. When turning our attention back to the ruthless rule of Macbeth as king, it becomes evident that his violent nature had been within him since his days as a soldier. King Duncan is most certainly not the first person Macbeth kills; he already has a killer instinct. Guilt from the murder only brings this nature out of him and in his case, serves as a mechanism that externalizes his true inner characteristics, like Lady Macbeth, only with results that are not entirely negative.

In Sandra Clark’s article Macbeth and the Language of the Passions, she argues that Lady Macbeth’s condition has its basis in humoral imbalances (the common medicinal theory at the time of Shakespeare which revolved around four main bodily humours), while simultaneously suggesting that it also could have been her body’s response to the crimes committed by her and her husband. While the first suggestion may play a part, the latter much better explains the contrasting reactions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Both these character’s reactions result from internal characteristics that are externalised by their guilt for murdering King Duncan. Shakespeare usage of this reveals his view of the nature of guilt: it is merely a catalyst that brings out the inner natures in people. It is not guilt, it is the aspects that build up our individual human consciousness (some being more obvious than others) that influences how we will rise or fall when faced with guilt.

Guilt does not harm or strengthen a person itself, it finds accomplices, vulnerabilities in a person and conjures up the true inherent natures of people. While Lady Macbeth’s compassion and Macbeth’s internal violent nature provide the ingredients for their contrasting responses to guilt, there are no restrictions on what guilt can do. There is always something within us that determines our path when we encounter guilt, characteristics that define whether it will strengthen us or lead us to our downfall.