Hands: Burden or Advantage? I have to hand it to Shakespeare, he sure knew how to use puns well. You know what else he knew how to use well? Motifs. One motif he uses in Macbeth is the physical and metaphorical “hand.” Hands are supposed to symbolize trust, but there is some dramatic irony in Macbeth: we as readers know, unbeknownst to the other characters, that when it comes to Macbeth and his wife, something as a simple as a handshake is dangerous. More accurately, hands symbolize guilt, regret, and remorse. Since hands are physically attached to people, everything Macbeth and his wife do with their hands is metaphorically attached to them as well. For them, having hands is a burden rather than an advantage because of the negative emotions that they evoke. At the beginning of Macbeth, hands are the means by which the characters show their loyalty and …show more content…
Every instance in which Macbeth and his wife use their hands, however, the trust and respect they show is just an act. When King Duncan is about to arrive at the Macbeth home, Lady Macbeth reminds her husband: “Your face, my thane, is a book where men / May read strange matters” (Shakespeare 1.6.73). His guilty expression could give his intentions away. “To beguile the time, / Look like the time” (Shakespeare 1.6.74). Present yourself in a manner that deems appropriate for the occasion. “Bear welcome in your eye, / Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’innocent / flower, / But be the serpent under ‘t” (Shakespeare 1.6.75). Act like you’re his trusty and loyal friend, she’s saying, offer your hand politely like an “innocent flower” and make him feel welcome. The catch is that Macbeth will be doing all of this
At the start of Act 1, Scene 2 Macbeth is shown brave and loyal with
In reality the blood should have wash off of his hands relatively easily, but this blood also represents the guilt he feels, which will never go away.(TS) Macbeth knew that murdering Duncan was immoral, but with some persuasion from Lady Macbeth, he decided to go through with it. After having his best friend, Banquo, murdered, Macbeth attends a celebration of him becoming King. At this celebration, Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo sitting at the table. Although the ghost looks like Banquo, it represents his guilt.(TS) He yells at the ghost to, “Take any shape but that,” (Shakespeare 3.4.102) of his best friend, because the guilt he feels makes his “firm nerves,” tremble (Shakespeare 3.4.102).
Macbeth differs from her husband in this aspect. She believes her conscience would be cleansed at the time her hands are physically cleaned. She tells her husband to have the same beliefs as she or he would be driven to insanity. Ironically, Lady Macbeth is the one that is driven to the brink of lunacy as she commits suicide at the end of the tragedy.
His hand is a metaphor for his soul, and the seas represent small good deeds. No matter what he does, his soul will never be clean again. Lady Macbeth belittles his worries, seeming unbothered by the fact that she helped kill the king. Right after Macbeth finishes his tirade on his sins, she insists that, “A little water clear us of this deed. ”(II.ii.86).
Out, I say” (Act V, Scene 1). It is very detailed that Lady Macbeth does not even know that she is feeling guilty of the acts that she had committed even though the blood on her hands is the obvious sign of crime.” The queen is dead, my lord” (Act 5, Scene 5). Lady Macbeth is so filled with guilt that she ends her life. “My hands are of your color; but I shame to wear a heart so white” (Act 2, Scene 2, Line 65). Lady Macbeth is basically telling her husband to stop bemoaning the crime he has committed. Their hands are, in effect, proof of the commission of a terribly bloody murder as well as a proof of their guilty partnership. “What need
Macbeth’s injury begins with guilt after the killing of his first victim Duncan. Many quotes from the play help represent this idea. For instance, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No: this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine,” displays how after Macbeth’s first murder, Duncan, his health starts to decline. It begins with his mind and the guilt that he feels. He says that no ocean can cleanse his hands and that he would turn the many oceans red with the blood on his hands. He is regretting what he has done and believes that...
(5.1.46-48) This shows that Lady Macbeth wants to rid herself of guilt, to wipe her hands clean of blood. At the start of the play, Lady Macbeth has an intense desire to become queen and will go to great lengths to become royalty. However, this passionate ambition causes her to conduct wicked deeds, the consequences of which tear her apart from the inside, first by driving her insane, then taking her life. The vision of the dagger encourages the pursuit of ambition, and Lady Macbeth’s suffering demonstrates the deadly results of it.
She decides that it is best to frame the murder on Duncan’s servants by smearing Duncan’s blood on them while they are intoxicated with alcohol. The metaphor “the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil” represents people fearing things that cannot hurt them. Lady Macbeth once again ridicules her husband for his current state of paralysis out of fear. Lady Macbeth needs to be strong and definite in order to embed confidence in Macbeth mind in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled. Switching from Lady Macbeth to Macbeth is an immense change in character since Macbeth feels shocked while remorseful for the action he performed. After Macbeth comes back from Duncan’s room, he is stricken with grief to the point of minor paralysis. His speech retains his weak and feminine tone of voice, but conveys a more conscience driven response, which he states, “What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes./ Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/ Clean from my hand?” (2.2.76-79). Shakespeare employs the rhetorical device of an allusion to the play of Oedipus the King. Oedipus, the main character of the alluding play, plucks out his eyes, in guilt, because a terrible prophecy came through. Macbeth alludes to Oedipus, the main character, by stating that his hands pluck out his own eyes. This represents Macbeth taking responsibility for committing the murder of the king through his ambition and scheming wife. He feels
In this scene Macbeth has returned from killing Duncan, and he is alone in his room questioning if he made the right decision. He wonders if he can reconcile for his wrong doings. In this conversation to himself Macbeth he refers to washing his hands. The denotation of “washing” hands is the act of cleaning a person's arm beyond the wrist with water and soap or detergent. The use of washing hands is used to in this case as Macbeth trying to clean his hands from blood.
One quotation that shows the use of symbolism is by Lady Macbeth, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say…Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Act 5, Scene 1, lines 30-34) (Sparknotes 2011). This quote shows the imagined blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands as the symbol of the guilt and remorse, as well as fright, that she feels over all the deaths that have been implemented by her in the play. Lady cannot get rid of the blood which is a symbol for how she cannot get the deaths out of her consciousness.
The use of imagery of animals such as A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. helps the reader get a better understanding of the disruption to order and power that has occurred due to King Duncan’s murder. Shakespeare uses this analogy to show that Macbeth is lower in the food chain like the owl meaning he is weaker, yet he manages to kill the king who holds the most power like the falcon. Through this, the audience can see the chaos this creates as the events that have occurred have gone against nature. Imagery of blood is used abundantly in the play as it is frequently repeated to reinforce the guilt Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel after the murder like What hands are here! Ha! They pluck out mine eyes. 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
Lady Macbeth’s relationship with her husband is not as patriarchal as is seen in traditional representations of husband and wife dynamics during this time period. For example, she says, “To alter favor ever is to fear/ Leave all the rest to me” to Macbeth (I.v.72-73). She tells him what to do and how to do it rather than the more accustomed reverse. She is also taking a position of authority by doing things for herself. Lady Macbeth criticizes her husband, saying, “Wouldst thou have that/ Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life/ And live a coward in thine own esteem?” (I.vii.41-43). She calls him a coward, easily insulting him without repercussions and with the knowledge that he won’t do anything because of it. After Macbeth kills Duncan and is in shock of the crime he has just committed, Lady Macbeth says, “Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead/ Are but as pictures. ‘Tis the eye of childhood/ That fears a painted devil” (II.ii.53-55). In this scene, she is taking charge of the situation by ignoring her husband’s inability to fully comprehend what he has just don...
The image of blood plays an important role throughout Macbeth. Blood represents the murders that Macbeth had committed, the guilt that went along with the murders and the pain that it brought on him during his downfall. The soldier describes the violence and bloodshed, in the war between Scotland and Norway, "Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds." (I. ii. 43) foreshadows the violent nature of the play filled with murder, guilt and pain. Blood in the murder of King Duncan also plays a major role because it represents Macbeth's guilt as well as his shame for slaying King Duncan. Macbeth observes his blood stained hands and remarks "As they had seen me with these hangman's hands." (II. ii. 28) This reveals his guilt and shame because he is comparing his hands to those of an executioner's. After the murder, Macbeth refuses to return back to the bed chamber of Kind Duncan to smear the blood on the sleeping guards, because he is afraid that the blood will incriminate him further. Lady Macbeth smearing the blood onto the guards represents them trying to rub their guilt off onto the guard. "I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt" (II. ii. 73) but this proves to be ineffective because Macbeth ends up murdering t...
There are many symbols used in Macbeth that help us to better understand the play. In the following paragraphs, I will explain them in depth. There are four symbols that I will discuss below, they are light and darkness, they represent the good and bad things that take place throughout the play. The second symbol is blood. The blood represents murder and guilt, like the blood on the dagger and the blood on Lady Macbeth's hand.
turn his life upside down. Macbeth is not the person he seems. He is introduced as a warrior