

Imagery In Macbeth Essay

1421 words - 6 pages

One thing every culture, religion, race, and country has in common is the blood that runs through its people’s veins. No one is a stranger to blood, and its universality allows many authors to utilize it as effective imagery in their literary works. British playwright William Shakespeare uses blood imagery in many of his plays, one prevalent example being Macbeth. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses blood imagery to symbolize guilt, foreshadow negative events, and develop Macbeth as a tragic hero.
In his famous tragedy Macbeth, Shakespeare uses blood imagery to symbolize the guilt of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. For example, as soon as he murders King Duncan, Macbeth, regretful and guilt-ridden, 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¨ (2.2.57-60). Clearly, Macbeth is intelligent enough to know that the blood on his hands can physically be washed away with a little water, but, because Macbeth says there isn’t enough water in an entire ocean to clean his hands, the reader can infer he is referring not only to the physical blood on his hands, but also to his guilt over killing Duncan. Maynard Mack, the Sterling Professor of English at Yale University and author of Everybody's Shakespeare, writes that that the blood in Macbeth is ¨...both ordinary and special. it sticks like real blood: ‘his secret murders sticking on his hands,’ says Angus of Macbeth (5.2.17). It smells as real blood smells: ‘here’s the smell of blood still,’ says Lady Macbeth (5.1.47) hopelessly washing. Yet it finally covers everything Macbeth has touched, in ways both qualitative and quantitative that real blood could not” (191). Mack states that the blood in Macbeth has physical and symbolic qualities, supporting the idea that the blood on Macbeth’s hand is actually there, but is meant to symbolize his guilt. Cassandra Nelson, an assistant to the Provost at Boston University with an English PhD, states in the Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature that Macbeth “...feels changed, tainted, by what he has done. He describes his guilt as a stain that he cannot wash off, for it would sooner color the whole world than fade from his skin”. Shakespeare also uses blood to symbolize Lady Macbeth’s initial lack of guilt. After Macbeth kills Duncan and is wracked with guilt, Lady Macbeth tells him he can wash off the blood with a little water (2.2.65). This shows Lady Macbeth’s lack of remorse at this point in the play. Later on, after Lady Macbeth learns that her husband killed Macduff’s wife and children, a doctor and a gentlewoman in Dunsinane hear her say, “The thane of Fife had a wife. where is she now? - What, / Will these hands ne’er be clean?” (5.1.36-37). This shows how Lady Macbeth has transformed from ruthless and guiltless after Duncan’s murder to guilt-ridden, haunted by her metaphorically blood-covered hands. This is reiterated later in the same...

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