William Shakespeare’s 1606 tragedy Macbeth maintains that tragedy is an inevitable result when one attempts to control fate. Shakespeare demonstrates the effects of fate through the use of hand symbolism and light/dark imagery.
Trying to control one’s hands and actions can cause larger consequences as nothing can get in fate’s way. Macbeth believes that fate is what is telling him to complete such a brutal and inhumane task. While talking with Lady Macbeth, Macbeth is considering killing Banquo without Lady Macbeth knowing and he voices to “Come, seeling night/Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day/And with thy bloody and invisible hand/Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond/Which keeps me pale!” (III.ii). He is referring to his hand as “bloody and invisible” and genuinely believes that fate has control over his thoughts and his mind after even
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He doesn’t want to see his hands commit this deed. Macbeth feels as though his evil actions are entirely separate from his identity and blames his actions on fate, which eventually becomes consequential. After talking to Banquo and Fleance, Macbeth is left alone when he starts envisioning a knife and questions “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 though not, fatal vision, sensible/To feeling as to sight?” (II.i). His hand reaches out to that knife under the temptation of getting the throne and becoming King. The witches words are stuck in his head; at first, he was going to let it be and let it come naturally, but he felt that that day would never come if he waits around doing nothing about it.