Symbols of Guilt in Macbeth

The motifs of guilt and death appear many times throughout Macbeth to show the results of changing fate.

What will be discussed?

-The painting

• Colors and their meaning
• Symbols
• Over all concept

-Symbols of guilt/death in Macbeth

• Bloody hands
• Hallucinations
• Daggers
• No sleep

Symbols of Guilt in Macbeth

Opening Questions

Does major guilt often lead to insanity, as it did for Macbeth and his wife?

Did Macbeth and his wife deserve the insanity that came upon them?

About the painting:

Colors

Expressions

Symbols

Symbols in Macbeth:

By Maddy Perriman

• Bloody hands

• Hallucinations

• Daggers

• No sleep

Bloody Hands

Bloody hands represent guilt and the severity of murder in Macbeth.

Quotes

• "How is’t with me, when every noise appals me? / 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 green one red. " (Macbeth Act II, scene II, Line 76-81)

• "Go get some water / And wash this filthy witness from your hand.” (Macbeth Act II, Scene II, Line 60-61)

• "My hands are of your color,"(Macbeth Act II, Scene II, Line 81)

Hallucinations/Ghosts

Hallucinations and ghosts act as reminders of the murders that have been committed and guilt.

Quotes

• "Prithee see there! ehold! look! lo! How say you? Why, what care i? If thou canst nod, speak too. If charnel houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites." (Act III, Scene IV, Lines 70-74)

• I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going, And such an instrument I was to use. (Act II, Scene I, Lines 47-55)

Dagger

Daggers represent murder and the complex relationship that Macbeth has with it.

No Sleep

Quotes

• “Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshal’st me the way that I was going, And such an instrument I was to use. ” (Macbeth Act II, Scene I,Line 44-55)

• "Infirm of purpose!/ Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead/ Are but as pictures. 'Tis the eye of childhood/ That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,/ I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,/ For it must seem their guilt." (Act II, Scene II, Line 68-73)

Lack of sleep in Macbeth represents guilt and/or the instanity that stems from it.

Conclusion

Macbeth tampering with fate is what caused his demise in the end. The murder of Duncan set him on his path of insanity. This is represented with bloody hands, hallucinations, daggers, and a lack of sleep.

Quotes

• "Methought, I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep'. " (Macbeth Act II, scene II, Line 47-48)

• "Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house. 'Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more'. " (Act II, Scene II, Line 54-57)

• "You lack the season of all natures, sleep." (Act III, Scene IV, Line 173)