In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is a noble, loyal, and courageous man. However, he possesses a tragic flaw of ambition. His ambition leads him to much destruction and eventually to his own death. The recurring idea of blood is used to point towards the results of his tragic flaw. The motif of blood supports the theme of the corrupting power of unchecked ambition by representing death, betrayal, and guilt.
The main symbol that blood acts as in Macbeth is a symbol of death. In Act I, death is used in a good way. Macbeth kills Macdonwald with his sword “which smoked with bloody execution” (1.2.18). The bloody description shows Macbeth’s bravery and his victory in the battle. However, after the victory Macbeth encounters the witches and receives
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their prophecies. At first, he is hopeful but skeptical of the validity of the witches’ divinations, but when the first of their prophecies becomes true and he is named Thane of Cawdor, his ambition begins to grow enormously. When Macbeth begins to believe in the prophecy that he is to become king, the blood he causes to spill becomes a result of evil. Unchecked ambition causes Macbeth, who was once considered to be “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way” (1.5.15-16), to disregard his moral standards. He begins to consider more and more the act of murdering King Duncan so that he himself could become king until he eventually performs the murder. This act of violence starts a chain of murders, going from Duncan to Duncan’s servants to Banquo and continuing. Each murder that Macbeth is a part of increases his own corruption. He states “I am in blood stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er” (3.4.136-138). Macbeth believes that he reaches a point of no return after murdering Banquo. He thinks that it would be better to continue on his path of destruction than to cease with the murders. Ambition leads Macbeth to causing much bloodshed and to his own corruption. The motif of blood is also used by Shakespeare to represent the idea of betrayal, which was a result of Macbeth’s unchecked ambition.
Betrayal is first seen in the play when Macbeth murders King Duncan. In Act I, Macbeth is honored for his loyalty to King Duncan that was shown by his courage in battle. As the play progresses, Macbeth’s increasing desire for power destroys the loyalty he had once shown towards Duncan. He betrays Duncan’s trust and murders him, making for the first bloodshed that resulted from Macbeth’s unchecked ambition. Macbeth’s next act of betrayal was of Banquo. Banquo was supposed to be Macbeth’s best friend, which makes the betrayal even more sinister. When the murderer returns from killing Banquo, Macbeth observes “there’s blood upon thy face” (3.4.13). This represents that even though he killed Banquo indirectly, the blood spilled in the betrayal still comes back to haunt him; Macbeth begins to see the Ghost of Banquo. Macbeth’s hallucinations of Banquo are a turning point in Macbeth’s sanity in the play. After betraying Banquo, Macbeth feels that he is just as difficult for him to stop murdering people as it is for him to continue with killing, so he
continues. The guilt experienced by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is represented by blood throughout the play. The metaphorical stain of blood is difficult for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to remove. After Macbeth killed Duncan, he experiences severe guilt. He says to Lady Macbeth “will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?” (2.2.59-60). Macbeth does not believe that the guilt will ever leave him. It gets to the point where Macbeth gets extremely paranoid. His guilt turns into worry of others discovering that he is behind the murders. Macbeth begins to suspect many people of having knowledge of the crimes that he committed. He hires murderers to kill anyone who he has the slightest belief of them suspecting him of murder. Macbeth’s unchecked ambition caused a chain of events that turn him into a mass murderer. Lady Macbeth never did overcome the guilt. At first, she seems like she will be unshaken by the murders and free of guilt, while Macbeth feels the full force of guilt. However, as the play progresses the roles reverse. Macbeth is able to remove guilt by committing more murders while Lady Macbeth’s guilt grows. It gets so severely unbearable for Lady Macbeth that she takes her own life. The stain of blood is never removed for Lady Macbeth, while Macbeth continuously added to his own stain by committing more murders. Throughout the play, blood is used as a motif to support the theme of the corrupting power of unchecked ambition. Ambition leads Macbeth, a man once considered noble and honorable, to causing much destruction. Blood represents the outcomes of his ambition including death, betrayal, and guilt. Macbeth achieves his goal of becoming king but never ceases with immoral acts. His tyrannical reign causes the devastation of his country of Scotland, which leads to his overthrow and death. Ambition, when left unchecked, can ruin even the most honorable of people.
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.
Use of Blood Imagery in Macbeth William Shakespeare uses many techniques to liven up the intensity, and the excitement, of his plays. In the play of MacBeth, Shakespeare uses blood imagery to add a sense of fear, guilt, shame, insanity, and anger to the atmosphere. The use of blood imagery allows the audience to vision in their minds the crime scene where Duncan was murdered, as well as the scene where Lady MacBeth tries to cope with the consequences of her actions. The talk and sight of blood has a great impact on the strength and depth of the use of blood imagery. MacBeth’s soliloquy in Act 2 scene 1 gives the reader a description of how Duncan will be murdered.
Shakespeare used the image of blood to portray the central idea of Macbeth, King Duncan’s murder. The crime is foreshadowed in the second scene of the first act. The king shouts, “ What bloody man is that?” (I,ii,1) He is referring to a soldier coming in from battle. The soldier then explains to King Duncan of Macbeth’s heroics in battle. One assumes that Macbeth is bloody just like the soldier. The soldier describes Macbeth in action “Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution.” (I,ii,17-18) This line connects Macbeth with killing, and hints at the future.
Blood is also used to display the guilt in Lady Macbeth near the end of the play. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth is the one who tries to keep Macbeth sane and to keep from breaking.
Shakespeare uses the symbol of blood in MacBeth to represent treason, guilt, murder and death. These ideas are constant throughout the book. There are many examples of blood representing these three ideas in the book.
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 to 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. At the beginning of the play, blood imagery is very important. "Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chaps, / and fixed his head upon our battlements"(I.ii.22-23).
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy in which the main characters are obsessed by the desire for power. Macbeth’s aspiration for power blinds him to the ethical implications of his dreadful acts. The more that Shakespeare’s Macbeth represses his murderous feelings, the more he is haunted by them. By analyzing his hallucinations it is possible to trace his deteriorating mental state and the trajectory of his ultimate fall. Throughout the play Macbeth is never satisfied with himself. He feels the need to keep committing crime in order to keep what he wants most: his kingship. The harder Macbeth tries to change his fate the more he tends to run into his fate. His ambition and struggle for power was Macbeth’s tragic flaw in the play. Macbeth’s rise to the throne was brought about by the same external forces that ensure his downfall.
Macbeth’s hidden guilt for killing Duncan and Banquo is shown through symbolism. After King Duncan’s death has been announced, Macbeth appears to be stunned, but he knows the severity of his actions. When he’s with his wife, Lady Macbeth, he wants “this blood clean from my hand” (II. ii. 78-79). The blood symbolizes his guilt for murdering Duncan, and he wants this guilt to go away. After Duncan’s death, Macbeth has his friend Banquo killed. After this murder, Macbeth has a mental breakdown due to guilt. While holding a dinner at his house he yell “quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy
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 this he becomes ambitious and later kills the current King Duncan, making himself the new king. A tragic ending comes to Macbeth when the people leave him and his world collapses around him.
“.blood will have blood.” , Macbeth is a well known book written by Shakespeare. In it, a once loyal soldier to the king of Scotland starts to seek a way for him to get the crown for himself. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare uses the imagery of blood to represent the guilt of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, demonstrating the feeling of guilt has consequences of severe punishments. The imagery of blood shows Lady Macbeth wants to get rid of her guilt.
The symbolism of blood prior to, and immediately following Duncan’s murder amplifies the magnitude of Macbeth’s treachery. Following the prophecy of the witches, Macbeth contemplates the possible effects of murdering Duncan in order to gain the crown. Macbeth believes the killing of Duncan will provide "bloody instruction" to Scotland and will in turn "plague th' inventor" (1.7.9-10). This quotation characterizes the murder of Duncan as a bloody deed, therefore amplifying the severity of the crime. Prior to the murder of Duncan, Macbeth hallucinated bloody splotches on his dagger.
When we, human beings, are about to commit wicked acts, we feel a variety of emotions. One of those emotions is guilt. You may also feel guilt due to moments you chose not to act. The presence of guilt is a driving factor that prevents us from acting irrationally. Citizens of the 16th century possessed these emotions as well, no matter their social standing. The citizens included Shakespeare as well, a poet and playwright of the 16th century, and writer of the play Macbeth. Shakespeare transfers the idea of negative emotions to Macbeth by using blood to symbolize guilt, among other emotions in the protagonists they do not show otherwise. In Macbeth, William Shakespeare uses blood to show the inner-conflict of the
The Symbol Of Blood In Macbeth Blood is something that we need to live with. 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 has different meanings. One of the first references to blood represents a feeling of honour, and bravery. It is in Act I scene 2, line 1.
Throughout the play Shakespeare uses blood to illustrate bravery, honour courage , guilt and terson to develop a central character for macbeth.Macbeth was portrayed as a brave honorable general,we see this when Duncan see’s an solider and proclaims “What Bloody man is that”,the soldier says “smoked with bloody execution” he praises Macbeth courage and fearless bravery in the battle field .This makes King Duncan glorify macbeth which makes him known as “Brave macbeth”
Blood is seen as a symbol of courage and valor for Macbeth, who fights valiantly on the bloody battlefield.... ... middle of paper ... ... The symbol of blood in "Macbeth" comes full circle as it conveys honor, betrayal, guilt and honor again.