In Macbeth the audience becomes very aware of the power of evil to destroy. Show how Shakespeare uses repeated references to blood in order to establish this theme.

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2-12-02   Macbeth – Critical Response        

Task: In Macbeth the audience becomes very aware of the power of evil to destroy. Show how Shakespeare uses repeated references to blood in order to establish this theme.

“Enter Macbeth, with two bloody daggers”

For me, this stage direction from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth was very effective as it portrayed the power of evil to destroy. Throughout Macbeth, Shakespeare used many references to blood to capture the attention of the audience. The repeated reference to blood was very powerful as we were able to understand the bloodshed, Macbeth and :Lady Macbeth’s guilt and the relationships between the different characters.

From the beginning, we can see that Macbeth is a man with good intentions and a good heart. Macbeth’s ambition and the persuasion of his wife Lady Macbeth lead him to commit several horrible deeds. He aims to become the King, but in order to do this he sees that he’ll have to murder the present King, Duncan. In the end, Macbeth’s excessive ambition leads to a point of no return, and ultimately his own death. One of the key themes of Macbeth is clearly his ambition to become King, but there is also the important theme of the power of evil to destroy, which occurs frequently throughout the play. The persistent references to blood merge together to present these themes effectively.

Right from the start of Macbeth, the blood references help us to understand the play better. The two types of references to blood are literal and metaphorical. The first literal indication refers to the bloodshed at the beginning of the play when Macbeth returns from the battlefield. It then changes to refer to what turned out to be the first of Macbeth’s serial killings. In Act II Scene II, Macbeth murders Duncan as he wants to become the King. He then has to tackle Duncan’s sons, as they would reign after his death. However, things did not go as he had planned and it leads to a final tragedy, which is Macbeths own death. The metaphorical references show the life and death issue and refer to family relationships, but the most important metaphorical reference was clearly Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s guilt for killing the sovereign, and also the impossibility to break free from their culpability.

Macbeth’s ambition was to become the King of Scotland, yet to do this he had to murder Duncan and his two sons, Malcolm and Donaldbain. Lady Macbeth strongly influences Macbeth into doing this, and although he is very dubious of her idea at first, he begins to see things from her point of view and carries out her suggestion. To prevent themselves from getting caught out and getting in any danger, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth decide to murder Duncan when he is asleep, and put the bloody daggers beside the two grooms to imply that the grooms have murdered him. Macbeth says,

“If he do bleed,

I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,

For it must seem their guilt”

This literal reference shows us how tactful their plan is and their determination to not get caught. When they have finished this deed, they have Duncan’s blood on their hands and they feel extremely guilty. However, this doesn’t alter the strength of his ambition and he continues to attempt to attain regal power.

        His next step is to hire three murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance as one of them would be King after Duncan died. They manage to murder Banquo, but unfortunately Fleance escapes. The first murderer breaks to bad news to Macbeth and he is very disturbed by this as his hopes of the murder of Fleance are shattered. The banquet scene is a very important turning point in the play. The very start of the scene is as expected, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth greet their guests as a normal King and Queen would, but soon after they have welcomed their guests, the murderer arrives telling Macbeth that Banquo is dead. Shortly after the murderer leaves, Banquo’s ghost starts to appear occasionally. When Macbeth first sees Banquo’s ghost, he realises that it is only him who can see it. We begin to wonder if anything supernatural is actually happening, or is Macbeth’s sanity being tried? Macbeth says,

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“Thou canst not say that I did it; never shake

Thy gory locks at me!”

This literal reference implies that Macbeth does not feel guilty about Banquo’s death, and it helps us to create a vivid monstrous picture of what Banquo’s corpse would look like.

        In Macbeth, there are many supernatural happenings. As the three witches are creating a potion in a cauldron, he demands them to answer his questions and therefore, the witches show him three apparitions. The first apparition, an armed head, has told Macbeth that he has to beware of Macduff, however, the second apparitions, a ...

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