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The Motif Of Water In Macbeth By William Shakespeare

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Shakespeare has used the motif of water to symbolise purity. Contextually, water is used to wash away sins in order to start a new beginning. This is why children are washed with water at Christenings. This allegory is used by Lady Macbeth as she believes that water will wash away all evidence of their crimes: ‘wash this filthy witness from your hand.’ However, the idea of guilt is shown through her character as washing and handwashing is a repeated action in the play, notably shown through Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking (’out, damned spot!’) Shakespeare has used repetition to imply that the sin of regicide has had a long lasting impact on her and she can’t rid herself of her sins despite her determination, showing that she cannot escape from her actions without consequences. It also suggests that Lady Macbeth believes that guilt can be washed away and guilt is temporary which contrasts her actions at the end of the play. …show more content…

Macbeth contradicts his wife by believing that his sins will stay with him forever and water cannot wash them away: ‘No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous sins in incarnadine, making the green one red.’ Shakespeare has used the noun ‘incarnadine’ to create imagery where Macbeth’s sin is so serious he has made all the oceans irreversibly stained by Duncan’s blood. This could refer to the motif of nature and fate. Later in the play when Macbeth is crowned, fate has been disturbed as the Great Chain of Being has been altered. Contextually, the Great Chain of Being was a hierachial system considered to be the natural order of society in Elizabethan and Jacobean England where God chooses the

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