Blood Symbolism In Macbeth

Macbeth is a murderous play with blood, killing, fighting, and a lot of action. In this play, by William Shakespeare, there are many different themes and types of symbolism throughout the story. One theme is violence. Violence is shown all throughout the play with scenes with murder, suicide, and fighting between people. Every violent act that occurs somehow leads to the another murder. Another theme is ambition. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth throughout the play try to fulfill their ambitions of taking total control of the land. One symbol is blood. Blood relates very much to violence, but it also shows guilt. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel very guilty, but with blood on them, it stains and will never be able to get guilt off of them.

One major

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both try to fulfill their ambitions by doing lots of crazy things, such as murdering everyone in their way. The weird sisters told Macbeth many things that will come in his future, but Macbeth wants to fulfill what the sisters say with ambition. The weird thing is the weird sisters never make Macbeth or his wife do anything. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth planned everything out and are doing these ambitious things on their own. These ambitions don 't just affect Macbeth, it also can affect Lady Macbeth as well. For example, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth planned all the murders so they can try to fulfill their ambition. In the play, Lady Macbeth states “We fail? but screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail. when Duncan is asleep— whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey soundly invite him—his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only: when in swinish sleep their drenchèd natures lie as in a death, what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan? what not put upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell?” (Shakespeare I,7). This quote shows how Lady Macbeth is planning how Macbeth should kill Duncan. The Witches did not make this all happen, it’s all the planning by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. That is how ambition is a major theme

In this play, blood can symbolize a lot of things, but the main thing that blood symbolizes is guilt. Death and/or killing can happen very fast or in an instant, but blood can remain for even longer. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had lots of worries and feelings of guilt throughout the play after the murder of characters, but they start to believe what if they can’t remove the blood or guilt from their hands. In the play, Lady Macbeth states “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” (Shakespeare V,1). This quote shows how Lady Macbeth is having trouble getting blood or guilt off of her hands. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are going to have a very hard time getting rid of this guilt that they have. That is how blood is a major symbol in Macbeth by William