Motifs in macbeth series#

Symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the consciences of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. namely, the witches’ prophecy at the beginning of the novel (Thane of Cawdor, and King thereafter). throughout the play the audience is provided with gory descriptions of the carnage. Visions and hallucinations recur throughout the play and serve as reminders of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s joint responsibility for the growing body count (ex/ Banquo’s ghost, blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands). In the play, Duncan is always referred to as a king, while Macbeth is referred to as tyrant. The difference between kingship and tyranny Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband by questioning his manhood, and wishes that she herself could be “unsexed”. in the beginning, Macbeth is not inclined to commit evil deeds, but as the play goes on, his guilt and paranoia descend into a frantic, boastful madness. Throughout the play, destruction is wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints. Additionally, as the Birnam Wood and “born of woman” prophecies make clear, the prophecies must be interpreted as riddles, since they do not always mean what they seem to mean.The corrupting power of unchecked ambition Still, it is left deliberately ambiguous whether some of them are self-fulfilling-for example, whether Macbeth wills himself to be king or is fated to be king. Save for the prophecy about Banquo’s heirs, all of these predictions are fulfilled within the course of the play. The weird sisters make a number of other prophecies: they tell us that Banquo’s heirs will be kings, that Macbeth should beware Macduff, that Macbeth is safe till Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, and that no man born of woman can harm Macbeth. Prophecy sets Macbeth’s plot in motion-namely, the witches’ prophecy that Macbeth will become first thane of Cawdor and then king. By the end of the action, blood seems to be everywhere.

Motifs in macbeth series#

In between is a series of murders: Duncan, Duncan’s chamberlains, Banquo, Lady Macduff, and Macduff’s son all come to bloody ends. The action is bookended by a pair of bloody battles: in the first, Macbeth defeats the invaders in the second, he is slain and beheaded by Macduff. Interestingly, most of the killings take place offstage, but throughout the play the characters provide the audience with gory descriptions of the carnage, from the opening scene where the captain describes Macbeth and Banquo wading in blood on the battlefield, to the endless references to the bloodstained hands of Macbeth and his wife.

In each case, it is ambiguous whether the vision is real or purely hallucinatory but, in both cases, the Macbeths read them uniformly as supernatural signs of their guilt. The seemingly hardheaded Lady Macbeth also eventually gives way to visions, as she sleepwalks and believes that her hands are stained with blood that cannot be washed away by any amount of water. Later, he sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in a chair at a feast, pricking his conscience by mutely reminding him that he murdered his former friend. Another example of how madness is shown in visions and not sleeping, is when Lady Macbeth is. The dagger is covered with blood, which represents the bloody course Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are headed down. Covered with blood and pointed toward the king’s chamber, the dagger represents the bloody course on which Macbeth is about to embark. Macbeth sees or hears strange things: the floating dagger, the voice that says hes murdering sleep, and Banquos ghost. When he is about to kill Duncan, Macbeth sees a dagger floating in the air. Visions and hallucinations recur throughout the play and serve as reminders of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s joint culpability for the growing body count. Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.