Motif Of Blood In Macbeth Essay

In the tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare portrays the damaging effects of one man’s boundless ambition to himself and those around him. Macbeth, a martyr of his own strife, pursues power in his kingdom at the expense of others. His ultimate death resulted in the end of his tyrannical rule, but the death of his moral character resulted in part from the guilt he endured. The play is analyzed today for the similarities in human nature of modern society to that of Elizabethan times: moral plagues like guilt, ambition and hierarchy dominates humanity. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses motifs to symbolize the various emotions and themes surrounding the events of the play. Primarily, Shakespeare’s use of the motif of blood to represent guilt is shown in

Macbeth’s soliloquy after the murder of King Duncan in Act 2, Macbeth’s outburst during the dinner party in Act 3,and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in Act 5.
First and foremost, the motif of blood is represented as guilt in Macbeth’s soliloquy after the murder of King Duncan in Act 2.

Essentially in this act, Macbeth is motivated by his inner ambitions and resolves his internal conflict, about loyalty, with the conclusion of murdering King Duncan. After the crime is committed, Macbeth contemplates about his acquired guilt and says, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/ Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather/ The multitudinous seas incarnadine, /Making the green one red” (2.2.60-64). Here, Shakespeare uses hyperbole to emphasize how “Neptune’s ocean” can not wash the blood off of Macbeth. In this scene, Neptune, a god of the seas in Roman mythology, is shown to act as the divine force that fails to lift the guilt off of Macbeth. In addition, Shakespeare also uses imagery to illustrate how the blood on Macbeth will turn “incarnadine” seas “red.” This represents the magnitude of guilt that Macbeth faces, such that even the god of the seas can not prevent the entire ocean being stained with the blood on his hands and the guilt he suffers from. To emphasize, the portrayal of Macbeth’s guilt in this passage is significant mainly because it is one of the few instances Macbeth feels remorse throughout the play. Later on in the other scenes, Macbeth, a dynamic character, loses his sense of remorse. Ultimately, his soliloquy after murdering King Duncan illustrates his former character trait of feeling remorse and the

motif of blood serves to show the magnitude of Macbeth’s guilt, which later compiles and murders his positive morality.
Additionally, the motif of blood representing guilt is apparent again in Macbeth’s moral crisis during his dinner party in Act 3. Macbeth’s banquet was held to honor his ascension of power, but also illustrated his murderous streak to obtain such power. During the banquet, when denying the presence of the ghost of Banquo, Macbeth exclaims, “That, when the brains were out,/ the man would die/ And there an end. But now they rise again /With twenty mortal murders on their crowns” (3.4.82-85). To reiterate, Macbeth explains how the ancient times allowed for a man to remain in his grave, but now the unnatural ghost of Banquo haunts him. Here, Shakespeare uses imagery to the portray deaths of previous kings, or “twenty mortal murders,” “when the [their] brains were out.” In this scene, Banquo’s bloody ghost serves as a vessel of the accumulated guilt Macbeth created from murdering previous nobles. Similarly, Macbeth states, “Thou canst not say I did it. /Never shake thy gory locks at me” (3.4-5.54). The imagery of blood is portrayed again in this instance and the “gory locks” serves to remind Macbeth of Banquo’s murder, a murder he could not commit to on his own. Within this scene, Macbeth is shown to deny his guilt, as symbolized by the ghost of Banquo. His denial of guilt later leads him to come to the realization of, “I [Macbeth] am in blood /Stepped insofar” (3.4.144). Furthermore, the metaphor of the river of “blood” compares to the accumulated guilt Macbeth creates through his denial, which soon suffocates his moral conscience to a point of no return and later contributes to the suicide of his wife.
Along with the motif of blood representing Macbeth’s guilt in the play, Lady Macbeth’s guilt is also portrayed with the motif of blood in her sleepwalk scene of Act 5.

In Act 5, Lady Macbeth’s former controlling persona is deteriorated into a weak victim of guilt. Within her sleepwalk, Lady Macbeth ruminates on her compiled guilt and states, “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” (5.1.28). To elaborate, Lady Macbeth realizes that the guilt of killing King Duncan and other pawns is inescapable. Shakespeare uses hyperbole to demonstrate how much the “blood in him [Duncan]” has effected Lady Macbeth and as a result, she attempts to erase every trace of blood, or guilt, from her morality. For instance, she says, “Here’s the smell of the blood still./ All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” (5.1.33-34). In this excerpt, Shakespeare’s overstatement of “all the perfumes of Arabia” conveys how Lady Macbeth attempts and fails to transfer her guilt. Consequently, this is a result of the belief that Lady Macbeth, and Macbeth, have of using physical means to attempt to erase psychological fears like guilt. As a result of her failure, she demonstrates her frustration by saying “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” (5.1.25) Inevitably, her failed attempts of removing her guilt, or the blood motif of the “damned spot,” later contributes to her physical and moral

suicide.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, he uses the motif of blood to convey the effects of inescapable guilt as shown in Macbeth’s soliloquy on King Duncan in Act 2, his outburst at the banquet in Act 3 and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in Act 5. By and large, Macbeth illustrates the results of poor atonement for guilt. Throughout the play, Macbeth builds his guilt to the point of no return and ends up suffocating his morals and those around him. The play elucidates to its audience that guilt, like other flaws of human nature, will not be solved with physical actions but rather moral redemption.