“I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell”.
Before Duncan’s murder, Macbeth imagines a dagger floating in the air before him. He describes it:
“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 still see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight?” Act 2 sc.1 (lines 33-37).
Macbeth also talks of blood on the dagger that he has hallucinated before him, and this is implying that that dagger is going to be used viciously and maliciously on someone, which of course, it then is. Shakespeare probably used this imagery as a premonition of later death and murder.
The most likely explanation of Duncan not being killed on-stage is that the audience would be too horrified. In the day the play was written, the king was seen as holy, and appointed by God. If Duncan were killed on-stage, Shakespeare would be perceived as a person with immoral thoughts, and maybe even evil.
The next murder is also performed off-stage. Macbeth kills the grooms when he panics after the household discover Duncan’s body. Macbeth blames his murder of them on his fury: “O yet I do repent me of my fury, /That I did kill them”.
The first person to be killed on-stage is Banquo. Macbeth hires two murderers to kill him and his son, Fleance. Macbeth sees Banquo as a threat, because the witches prophesised that Banquo’s offspring would be heir to the throne, and Banquo witnessed this prediction, hence Macbeth’s need to eliminate father and son. However, on the scene of where Banquo is killed, a third, anonymous murderer appears, who is a surprise to the murderers themselves and the audience. Banquo is killed but Fleance escapes. On the morning Banquo is murdered, Macbeth asks him three times where he is going and whether Fleance would be accompanying him. Banquo should have been more suspicious about Macbeth’s behaviour, as he did witness the witches prophesising that Banquo’s progeny would be heir to the throne. Upon closer inspection, this also makes Macbeth seem more cruel, as Banquo trusted him completely and they had been to battle together.
In my opinion, the next murder on-stage might have been the most horrifying scene in the play. This is in Act 4, scene 2. It starts off with Lady Macduff talking to her son about why his father had abandoned them. She tells her son that he is a traitor, although she doesn’t seem to believe it herself. It shows motherly love, and when two murderers burst in upon them, Lady Macduff’s son insults a murderer after the murderer tells him that his father is a traitor. Macduff’s son is stabbed on-stage, and Lady Macduff exits, crying murder and pursued by the murderers. Presumably, she is killed off-stage. This double-murder seems all the more malevolent because it is motiveless and Lady Macduff seems to represent all the innocent people murdered by Macbeth.
Lady Macbeth portrays the evil side that blood offers to contrast with the good. At the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth hears from a messenger and Macbeth’s letter to her that the king will be arriving that night. At the time, Lady Macbeth is the evil one of the pair, whilst Macbeth seems full of goodness. In this world, Lady Macbeth sees opportunity. The only problem seen to her was that she was a woman; she wishes that her weak, female body would change:
“unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,” Act 1 sc. 5 (lines 40-43).
Lady Macbeth thinks that if she had thick blood, she could kill without guilt and penitence.
Lady Macbeth keeps her composure and puts on a façade to the world. The blood doesn’t seem to bother her, evil has filled her and a little blood does not tamper with her emotions. After she smears the guards with the king’s blood, she returns to her husband proclaiming him a coward. She tells her husband that her hands are the same colour as his but she is ashamed that he has a “white” coward heart.
Lady Macbeth shows the most vivid example of guilt with the use of imagery with blood in the scene in which she walks in her sleep, Act 5 scene 1. She says:
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One; two; why then,
‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord - fie!”
This is the point in which Lady Macbeth is referring to the blood on her hands from Duncan. She is hallucinating and seeing blood on her hands from that fateful night. Lady Macbeth only feels guilt for killing (or helping to kill) Duncan, as she wasn’t involved in the other murders.
“A soldier, and afeared? 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?” Act 5, sc.1 (lines 34-39). At this point Lady Macbeth is basically confessing her murderous actions and her guilt to the Doctor and the Gentlewoman.
All these references in the quotation are to murder and both include direct references to blood, again linking blood to treachery and murder. This speech represents the fact that she cannot wipe the bloodstains of Duncan off her hand. It is ironic that she says this because, immediately after the murder when Macbeth was feeling guilty, she tells him: “A little water clears us of this deed”. When the doctor of the castle tries to treat her for sleepwalking, he tells Macbeth: “As she is troubled with thick-coming fantasies”, meaning that Lady Macbeth is having dreams that deal with blood.
Lady Macbeth kills herself “by self and violent hands”. It seems that the guilt of murdering the king has affected her badly. The blood imagery exhibits Lady Macbeth’s guilt over Duncan’s murder. Her hallucinations of blood on her hands and her constant efforts to wash it off demonstrate that the agony of having guilty feelings is causing her to go insane. We later learn that this guilt strains her mind to the point that she commits suicide, although off-stage.
In the closing scene, Macbeth is killed by Macduff. He remained confident throughout the ending scenes of the play, even while the Scottish and English Army were planning on rebelling against him. He had this confidence from an apparition the witches conjured, and it told Macbeth that “none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth”. However, Macbeth did not know that Macduff “ was from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripp’d”, meaning he was born through a caesarean operation. This is another image of blood, although not as obvious.
Macduff then reappears after the fight victorious, with Macbeth’s head. Malcolm is then hailed King of Scotland. After the death of Macbeth at the hands of Macduff, the imagery of blood returns to what is was perceived as at the beginning of the play. The death of Macbeth is an honoured achievement for which they congratulate Macduff.
At the beginning of the play, Macbeth seems truly loyal to the king because he killed the King’s enemy, Macdonwald. Bloodshed at this point seems gallant. However, the fact that Macbeth refused to leave until he had mutilated Macdonwald’s body seemed sinister and almost obsessive. The king does not see this, and compliments Macbeth.
After Macbeth has killed Duncan, he is in shock. He realises the severity of his crime, and the murder changes Macbeth’s character. No longer does the imagery of blood connate an image of ambition; it now symbolises guilt, remorse, and an entry into the gates of hell from which no one can return. His world of supposed goodness has been shaken and the macrocosm altered. The blood sets up in his mind a paranoid scene; Macbeth, being afraid of everything. Macbeth thinks that what he has done is a terrible thing, and it is shown when he looks at his hands and says: “This is a sorry sight”. He has brought the daggers back with him, and this scares Lady Macbeth. When Lady Macbeth orders him to “smear the sleepy grooms with blood”, he refuses as he is so shocked he can only stare at the blood on his hands. Macbeth laments that not even all the water in the ocean will wash the blood off his hands. At that point, he had begun to realise the magnitude of his crime, and that he had done something truly evil. The same blood symbolism continues when Macbeth, shortly after he sees the ghost of the murdered Banquo (Act 3, scene 4) at his feast, goes into a state of shock and has to be escorted by Lady Macbeth back to his chamber. At the end of this scene, Macbeth says:
“Come, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use :
We are yet but young in deed.”
Macbeth is saying that his self-deception is like the fear of a novice who needs training. He is referring to Banquo’s ghost when he is talking of his self-deception, and he realises that he imagined it himself.
We now find that Macbeth has entered so far into hell and the world of evil, and it is impossible for him to return to righteousness. He will be forced to kill more and more people in order to retain control of the throne. The sins he has committed has not only perverted his virtuous life, but has condemned him to an eternity in hell. There is no chance of redemption; he has permanently allied himself with the forces of evil with the murder of his king.
I think that Shakespeare conveys the theme of death, murder and treason through the imagery of blood effectively. Blood, being an important part of essential life, is a perfect metaphor for death and murder. It is an successful symbol and it is used well throughout the play. He uses this blood imagery to enhance the audience’s understanding of Macbeth’s character and the audience has now witnessed the complete transformation of Macbeth. He starts as a noble, brave and just person. He gradually becomes evil, ambitious and treacherous during and after Duncan’s murder, after his initial feelings of remorse for his crime. He finally realises that he will be punished for his sins.
Due to these many changes, it has been proved that the symbol of blood has different meanings, which can be attributed to it throughout the course of this play.
