Use Of Light And Dark In Macbeth

William Shakespeare is presented as one of the most brilliant and timeless writers in all of history. Throughout his career he has written one of the most famous tragedies, Macbeth. Macbeth is about a Scottish soldier who comes home from war and receives prophecies from three mysterious and supernatural witches. Macbeth believes in the witches foreseeing and begins to perform actions to make these predictions true like becoming King of Scotland. Upon these actions, Macbeth resorts to murder and corruption to get to his what he desires (with help from his heartless wife, Lady Macbeth). When Macbeth eventually becomes king, he tries to cover up his previous murderous acts by lying and killing even more people that might expose him. The longer Macbeth is King, the more his ambition grows for more power which in the end lead to his downfall. Throughout this play, Shakespeare references natural opposites light and dark to a symbolized meaning. Shakespeare includes the antitheses of light and dark to establish the atmosphere of the setting by determining scenes in the play that withhold a light and happy or a dark and serious tones. Additionally, these natural opposites show the development of a character by

In Macbeth, the First murderer asks if the sun is setting soon and before they plan on murdering Banquo and his son Fleance, he asks, “The west glimmers with some streaks of day?” (Macbeth 3.3. 5). Since there is still light on Earth in this scene, the reader can assume that this scene will be presented as peaceful, possessing goodness and life but because the sun is close to setting, the murderous acts during the night will soon prevail. These possible events hint that that the evil darkness is going to overcome the good light. Also, when Macbeth states the wicked night is coming and with it comes and murder Macbeth tells the night