Symbolism and Imagery in Macbeth

The Weather

Sleep

Lennox:

"The night has been chaotic. The wind blew down through the chimneys where we were sleeping. People are saying they heard cries of grief in the air, strange screams of death, and terrible voices predicting catastrophes that will usher in a woeful new age. The owl made noise all night. Some people say that the earth shook as if it had a fever." (2.3)

The weather in Macbeth is an example of pathetic fallacy which is the weather mimicking the mood. Specifically the weather points to the dark deeds that are about to be committed. Generally, scenes are dark and gloomy. An example of this is the fact that thunder is in every scene with the witches (act 1, scene 1; act 1, scene 3; act 3, scene 5; act 4, scene 1). Another use of the weather in Macbeth is to make the point that the world is being thrown into turmoil. Elizabethans believed when the natural order of the universe was violated at a high level (such as a king’s assassination) the rest of the natural world is thrown into chaos. By killing Duncan Macbeth and disrupted the Chain of Being and chaos ensues in the natural world. In (2.4) we see Ross and an old man talking about some disturbing events. One includes that a falcon has killed an owl. This is a weird occurrence because birds of prey do not feast on each other. An even more disturbing event is that Ross says he has witnessed Duncan’s horses fighting and eating each other in some sort of frenzy. Both these events clue the characters in to the fact that something is extremely wrong.

In Macbeth sleep is connected to the idea of innocence, that if you can sleep you are free of guilt. All through the play we can see that sleep is connected to many other themes, which stem from the characters view of what sleep means to them, and what they might do to achieve sleep.

Lady Macbeth

"on the torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well" (3.2)

"rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep"(5. 1.)

Here Macbeth is starting to come to terms with the fact that his mental state is deteriorating. Macbeth's desire for sleep is encompassing, that it seems he is even starting to desire to be Duncan. Even though Duncan is dead, he is "asleep" and to Macbeth the difference between the two is now blurred from his ongoing fight with insanity. This quote could be seen as a foreshadow to Macbeth's imminent demise, because even though he attempts to fight until the end it seems that a part of him has already given up if only to feel the peacefulness that sleep brings once more.

How does this quote represent the demise of Macbeth?

In this quote the gentlewoman is explaining Lady Macbeth's nighttime sleepwalking rituals to the doctor. This shows that Lady Macbeth is living both in a dream world and believing she is ridding herself of the guilt, when she is asleep she is continuously dreaming of the murder of King Duncan, while in reality she is still guilty and continues to hide it. This is likely the result of Lady Macbeth's guilt for pushing Macbeth to murder King Duncan and as a result she can't sleep peacefully either. This shows an example of a more supernatural side because Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking is equal to her living in a whole different world than what is actually reality.

Find other examples in the play where weather is used to set the scene, emphasise the destruction of the Great Chain of Being or foreshadow looming danger.

List these in your exercise books

DEATH

FEAR

INSANITY

ALLUSION

GUILT

"Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep' -- the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast." (2.2)

Macbeth has "murdered sleep" and cannot rest because he is guilty of a horrible crime. Macbeth is comparing sleep to a nice soothing bath and the main course of a meal, showing that sleep is not only a necessity for everyone to live but that it makes life worth living. This gives proof that Macbeth is truly worried that he will not be able to reach a state of ever being peaceful again because King Duncan's murder will always haunt him, and that his mind's thoughts will never leave him.

Symbolism and Imagery

Clothing

Throughout the entire Shakespeare play clothes are used to represent the change in attitude, power, and people.

Those he commands move only in command, nothing in love: now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief. (5.2)

MACBETH: "I'll fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. Give me my armour. "

When the Scottish came and marched to join the English army, many of the men felt like Macbeth was to desperate. Angus says this to the other scottishmen.mI agree he was to hungry for power. He took on too much to fast. He is being swallowed in his own decisions influenced by power. It is self explanatory. His troops fight for Macbeth's right as king. A great leader fights with the duty and love of his people. Macbeth has the opposite affect. He is self-centered in his decisions for his people. He has little experience and is taking off more than he can chew.

It's like a kid taking on the role of a grown up

He says this when his thanes will not fight with him. He says "Give me my Armor" which is strongly discouraged by one of his attendants . The attendant is simply warning him that you cannot fight this battle on your own. Macbeth feels that he has earned his title and he will fight to the end just to keep that title. He also thinks that he is the warrior he used to be. He ends up walking away without all his armor on which proves in a metaphorical way that he is not prepared in any way to keep the role as king. In the end no matter how strong his will was to keep his title, his death was the outcome for he was outnumbered and unprepared.

Macbeth is given new honours that fit him like a badly fitting garment, as if they don't belong to him. In the beginning of the play when he is addressed as the Thane of Cawdor, he replies

“The Thane of Cawdor lives: Why do you

dress me in borrow’d robes” .

The role of blood in Macbeth is to symbolize the growing guilt that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth share.

Lady Macbeth

“I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er” (3.4)

“Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.” (5.1.)

We see that Lady Macbeth’s character has completely shifted. In the beginning she called Macbeth a coward for feeling guilty about murdering the king, but now we see that her and her husband have shifted roles. Her mind is so disturbed by the guilt she feels, that even in her sleep she is haunted by her once blood-stained hands.

Macbeth compares his guilt to himself being in a river of blood. He is so deep in this river that it would be just as hard for him to go back to a life of good as it would be for him to keep killing. This shows how desensitized he has become and foretells more bloodshed.

Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their murderous journey, blood comes to symbolize their guilt, and they begin to feel that their crimes have stained them in a way that cannot be washed clean.

“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)

In reaction to murdering Duncan, Macbeth’s guilt is so great that he feels no amount of water can cleanse his hands. The blood, symbolizing his guilt, is too great that any ocean used to clean his hands would be turned red.

Shakespeare's Macbeth