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What Does Blood Symbolize In Macbeth

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Symbols of Blood in Macbeth Macbeth, the famous play by William Shakespeare, is considered one of the most violent theatrical pieces from the Elizabethan era. Throughout the play, we observe the process of countless murders. Duncan, Banquo, and many others lost their lives at the hands of Macbeth and his wife. The play has many themes tying back to their murders, and many poetic devices to symbolize such themes, with blood being one of the most prominent. In this piece, blood symbolizes murder, guilt, and consequence. Firstly, blood symbolizes the act of murder. When a murder is committed in the play, the blood of the victims persists for multiple scenes and remains a cold reminder of the deed. When characters refer to murder, they often talk …show more content…

In the play, the guilt from the murders sticks in your conscience, just as blood sticks to your hands. The greatest example of this is in Act Five of the play, with Lady Macbeth’s iconic “Out of the Damned Spot” monologue. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth starts to feel guilty about being an accomplice to Macbeth’s murders, the overwhelming guilt driving her insane. She starts to lose her grip on reality and sees imaginary blood on her hands. This leads her to sleepwalk around the castle, trying to wash the blood of Duncan off her hands. Her famous quote said during her episode, “Out damned spot, out, I say, who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (5.1.25–28), shows how she sees blood, with it being a physical manifestation of the guilt that has accumulated in her mind. However, Lady Macbeth is not the only one who experiences this guilt, Macbeth experiences these manifestations of guilt as well. A famous example of this is the bloody ghost of Banquo appearing while Macbeth is having dinner. Banquo was a good friend of Macbeth, and killing him took a great toll on Macbeth. While confronting the hallucination of Banquo’s ghost, he says, “Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me”. The words “Gory locks” imply that Banquo’s appearance is bloody. The blood indicates that the ghost represents Macbeth’s

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