Macbeth.

        Shakespeare showed the reader that they should fear the wicked things that go bump in the night and other evil things, through his image pattern of fear.  The first example of fear shown in Macbeth is when Macbeth states “we will proceed no further in this business: [Duncan] hath honour’d me of late; and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside soon”(I, vii, 16), as Macbeth fears his attempt may face repercussions.  His fear is voiced further towards Lady Macbeth when he asked “If we should fail?”(I, vii, 17), clearly fearing the consequences of this heinous deed they were about to commit.  After Macbeth committed the murder of Duncan, he feared what he did, as he said “I am afraid to think what I have done; look on’t again I dare not.”(II, ii, 23)  Later on in the play, Macbeth becomes fearful that revenge may be exacted upon him, as he stated “it will have blood: they say blood will have blood.”(III, iv, 45)  This clearly indicated Macbeth’s fear, and made him pursue the murders of Macduff and kin.  Furthermore, Shakespeare used the image pattern of fear to show other’s fear of Macbeth and his deeds.  After a messenger informed Lady Macduff of her impending doom, she stated “wither should I fly? I have done no harm.  But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas, do I put up that womanly defence, to say I have done no harm?--What are these faces?”(IV, iii, 59)  She realized that her innocence does not protect her from Macbeth trying to have her killed.  Malcolm also feared Macbeth, as he referred to him as “Devilish Macbeth.”(IV, iii, 63)  Moreover, Shakespeare used the image pattern of fear to show it like a disease.  This was shown when Macbeth stated “I cannot taint with fear”(V, iii, 72), which meant he could not let fear affect his performance.  Macbeth further realizes this when the army is about to attack his castle, as he said “I have almost forgot the taste of tears.”(V, v, 76)  Macbeth tried to inflict fear upon Young Siward when he attacked Macbeth, as he said that he would “be afraid to hear”(V, vii, 79) Macbeth is his name and that his name “nor more fearful”(V, vii, 79) than the devil’s.  Shakespeare used the image pattern of fear to further augment the intricate weaving of image patterns and themes found in Macbeth.

        Another image pattern that Shakespeare created in Macbeth was that of blood. The first image of blood presented to the reader is that blood represents the price of war.  The “bleeding Sergeant”(I, ii, 1) informed Duncan of Macbeth’s triumphs in battle “with his brandish’d steel, which smoked with bloody execution”(I, ii, 2), whereas Macbeth fought well in the battle by spilling the blood of his enemy.  Yet the blood on Macbeth’s blade soon turns to the blood of Duncan, as Macbeth envisioned “on [his] blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, which was not so before.  There’s no such thing: it is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes.”(II, i, 20)  The thought of murdering Duncan put a bloody image in Macbeth’s mind, to carry forth the blood imagery.  After Macbeth murdered Duncan, he was astounded by the blood, as he said “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.”(II, ii, 23)  Clearly, the image of “Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood, and his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature for ruin’s wasteful entrance”(II, iii, 28) made Macbeth realize the levity of his act.  The shock value of blood is yet another image pattern Shakespeare created in Macbeth. The appearance of Banquo’s bloody ghost shocked Macbeth, as he said “Blood hath been shed ere now, in the olden time, ere humane statute purged the gentle weal; ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d too terrible for the ear; the time has been that, when the brains were out, the man would die, and there an end; but now they rise again, with twenty mortal murders on their crowns, and push us from our stools: this is more strange than such a murder is.”(III, iv, 44)  Macbeth hoped that by murdering Banquo, he would have done away with him; nonetheless, Banquo came back to haunt Macbeth.  Macbeth realized this and tried to reason at the ghost, as he said “thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold”(III, iv, 44), indicating that since this manifestation of Banquo is warm-blooded, it should not exist to bother Macbeth.  Yet Banquo’s bloody ghost  stands as a poignant symbol towards Macbeth, as he realized “it will have blood: they say blood will have blood”(III, iv, 45) and that Macbeth will have a bloody revenge extracted upon him.  Macbeth further commented on this, as he said “I am in blood stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more”(III, iv, 46) meaning that Macbeth’s bloody assassination of Duncan has caused him to get in over his head, as he faces the consequences of this murder.  Shakespeare, though, not only gives the blood image a presence through the perspective of Macbeth, but also through the perspective of others, like Lady Macbeth, Macduff and Malcolm.  Blood serves as an image of guilt for Lady Macbeth. When Lady Macbeth was sleep walking, she shouted “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!…Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?…What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”(V, i, 70)  She wanted to cleanse herself of her guilt for this heinous act, to wash away the blood that was spilled, yet she was unable to.  So, she was driven to misery and took her own life. For Macduff, blood symbolizes the pain his country Scotland is suffering under Macbeth, as he stated “bleed, bleed, poor country…for the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp.”(IV, iii, 60)  He asserted that Macbeth’s power was ill-gotten, as he said “O nation miserable! With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter’d.”(IV, iii, 63)  Malcolm expounded upon this, as he said Scotland “weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds”(IV, iii, 61) with Macbeth in power.  He vowed revenge on Macbeth, that he would pay with his blood, as he proclaimed “I grant him bloody, luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin that has a name.”(IV, iii, 61)  Macduff commented on this revenge, as he said before storming Macbeth’s castle “Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.”(V, vi, 78)  Macduff wanted Macbeth to know he was coming, and that he was going to face a bloody death.  Despite this, Macbeth failed to realize his impending doom, as he said when he encountered Macduff “With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed: let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.”(V, viii, 80)  Ironically enough, Macduff slays Macbeth by his sword.  Shakespeare started the blood image pattern by presenting the reader with a picture of Macbeth’s bloody sword, and concluded the image pattern with Macbeth’s bloody death by Macduff’s sword.  The substantial image pattern of blood has been woven in as an integral part of the image patterns and themes of Macbeth.

        Macbeth’s desire to become king serve as the basis for the theme of ambition found in Macbeth.  It was Macbeth’s ambition that drove him to become king through treasonous murder, causing his tragic downfall.  Macbeth realized early in the play from the Witches that he “shall be king and thane of Cawdor”(I, iii, 7), which primed his ambition to become king.  When he discovered he was thane of Cawdor, Macbeth commented on his ambitious “thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother’d in surmise.”(I, iii, 8)  This is the first point in the play where Macbeth’s ambition led him to consider the possibility of assassinating Duncan.  Later, Macbeth pondered “if it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch, with his surcease, success; that but this blow might be-all and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we’ld jump the life to come.”(I, vii, 15)  This consideration of murder led him say “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.”(I, vii, 16)  Clearly, Macbeth’s ambition was a driving force in leading him to commit murder.  Another driving force in leading Macbeth to commit murder was Lady Macbeth’s ambition.  When she received word that Macbeth was thane of Cawdor, as prophesized by the Witches, and that they also told that he shall become king, she said “to catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win: thou ‘ldst have, great Glamis, that which cries ‘Thus thou must do, if thou have it; and that which rather thou dost fear to do than wishest should be undone.’”(I, v, 11-12)  With this, Lady Macbeth began to plot how her husband could attain the position of king.  Her ambition was so great at that point that she proclaimed “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty!”(I, v, 12)  She would commit the heinous dead herself, yet she pushed Macbeth to do it.  When he arrived, Lady Macbeth told him “I feel now the future in the instant”(I, v, 13), indicating to him that he can become king by killing Duncan when he comes to the castle that night.  Lady Macbeth’s ambition makes her push her husband to the edge, by screwing his “courage to the sticking-place [so they would] not fail.”(I, vii, 17)  By Macbeth’s ambition to become king, and Lady Macbeth’s ambition to see her husband through, Duncan was murdered by Macbeth.  Yet Duncan’s murder spurred on a chain of events that threatened the stability of Scotland, which could only be regained by the beheading of Macbeth.  Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s ambition combined caused both of their demise.  Shakespeare used ambition as a pivotal theme in Macbeth, adding to the tapestry of image patterns and themes woven in.

        The Three Witches in the beginning of play prophesize to Macbeth that he shall become king.  It is not a coincidence that Shakespeare used this to set the stage for another key theme of Macbeth: fate and destiny.  The basis for this theme can be drawn upon from the time imagery, as the time imagery showed the prophesizing of Macbeth’s destiny.  Yet with Macbeth’s potent ambition, Macbeth attempted to turn the witches’ prophecy into a self-fulfilling prophecy when he killed Duncan, trying to take his destiny into his own hands.  This is first shown when Macbeth commented “this supernatural soliciting cannot be ill; cannot be good; if ill, why hath it given me earnest of success, commencing in truth? I am thane of Cawdor: if good, why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature?”(I, iii, 8)  At this point, Macbeth is anxious about his future, knowing that to become king can only happen through murder.  Lady Macbeth hopes that Macbeth’s prophecy is fulfilled when she heard of it, as she stated “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be what thou art promised”(I, v, 11), to become king.  Macbeth, though, before he committed the murder of Duncan pondered on his fate, as he said “thou marshall’st me the way I was going; and such an instrument I was to use.”(II, i, 20) Yet through Lady Macbeth’s ambitious drive and Macbeth’s starving ambition to become king, he finally committed the deed, fulfilling his destiny.  Later in the play, Macbeth asks the Witches what is in store for his destiny, as he exclaimed “I conjure you, by that which you profess, howe’er you come to know it, answer me.”(IV, i, 53)  The Witches then call upon the Three Apparitions, which inform Macbeth to “beware Macduff”(IV, i, 53), “laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”(IV, i, 54), and “Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him.”(IV, i, 54)  After Macbeth heard such, he felt his fate was in good hands.  Ironically, Macbeth’s fate was in a grave state, as it was sealed in the Apparitions’ prophecies.  Macbeth first realized this when the army approached his castle looking like a grove of trees and he said “I pull in resolution and begin to doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like the truth: ‘Fear not, till Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane’; and now a wood comes toward Dunsinane.”(V, v, 77)  When Macbeth encountered Macduff, he felt invulnerable, as he bore a “charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.”(V, viii, 80)  Macduff told Macbeth before slaying him that “Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d.”(V, viii, 80)  Macbeth’s fate as prophesized by the Apparition’s was fulfilled, resulting in his death.  Shakespeare built upon the irony that Macbeth’s attempt to fulfill his destiny to gain personal heights led to his true fate, a fatal demise.  Hence, fate and destiny served as a key strand in the weave of image patterns and themes found in Macbeth.

        In the beginning of the play, it appeared that Macbeth would achieve great heights; yet in reality, he was dead  by the end of the play.  This serves as one of the key tenets of the theme of appearance versus reality.  In the beginning of the play, the Witches said “fair is foul, and foul is fair”(I, i, 1), setting up the basis for this theme, as nothing appears to be what is seems.  When Macbeth was told by the Witches “hail to thee, thane of Cawdor”(I, iii, 5), he questioned “how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives, a prosperous gentlemen”(I, iii, 6) when in reality the thane of Cawdor was a “most disloyal traitor.”(I, ii, 3)  When Duncan was coming to Macbeth’s castle, Lady Macbeth told him to deceive Duncan by bearing “welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t.”(I, v, 13)  Yet even though she was a pivotal player in the conspiracy against Duncan, when awoke by the commotion caused by the discovery of Duncan murdered, she said “What’s the business, that such a hideous trumpet calls to parley the sleepers of the house?”(II, iii, 26), trying to appear like she knew nothing about it.  Further deception occurred around the murder, as Macduff said “Malcolm and Donalbain, the king’s two sons, are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them suspicion of the deed.”(II, iv, 30)  Amidst all the deception surrounding the murder, the Old Man makes a key insight, as he said “God’s benison go with you, and those that would make good of bad and friends of foes!”(II, iv, 31) This directly tied into the Witches’ saying in the beginning of “foul is fair and fair is foul” (I, i, 1).  Another deception is found when Macbeth told Banquo he was going to “hold a solemn supper”(III, i, 33) in his honor, when in reality Macbeth plotted to murder him that night.  After the murder occurred, Macbeth said at the dinner that “were the graced person of our Banquo present, who may I rather challenge for unkindness than pity a mischance!”(III, iv, 42-43) Macbeth blamed Banquo for being late, while in reality Macbeth caused his untimely death.  Further examples of appearance versus reality can be found in the Apparitions prophecies.  These prophecies appeared to Macbeth as signs of his prosperity, when in reality they were signs of his demise.  Shakespeare used the theme of appearance versus reality throughout Macbeth, further adding to its plethora of image patterns and themes woven into it.

        “[Duncan] hath honour’d me of late”(I, vii, 16), said Macbeth, appearing as a loyal servant of his liege; yet he murdered him in an ambitious and greedy attempt to become king.  Shakespeare placed the theme of honor and loyalty to contrast characters in Macbeth.  Macbeth was loyal to the king early on in the play, as he said in his presence “the service and the loyalty I owe, in doing it, pays itself.  Your highness’ part is to receive our duties: and our duties are to your throne and state children and servants; which do but what they should, by doing every thing safe toward your love and honour.”(I, iv, 10)  Yet Macbeth’s words meant nothing, as he dishonorably murdered Duncan.  Furthermore, Macbeth conceded in the end of the play that his “way of life is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf, and that which should accompany old age, as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.”(V, iii, 73) In Macbeth’s dishonorable state, his own servants would not give him their loyalty.  Angus commented upon this when he said “now minutely revolts unbraid his faith-breach; those he commands move only in command, nothing in love: now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief.”(V, iii, 72)  Furthermore, even his doctor said “were I from Dunsinane away and clear profit again should hardly draw me here.”(V, iv, 75) No one remained loyal under Macbeth’s command in the end. In contrast to Macbeth, Banquo and others proved honorable and loyal.  When asked by Macbeth if Banquo would serve under his reign, he replied “so I lose none in seeking to augment it, but still keep my bosom franchised and allegiance clear, I shall be counsel’d.”(II, i, 20)  Banquo would not commit treason to augment his position.  Macduff was an honorable man, as Ross defended him as being “noble, wise, judicious, and best knows the fits o’ the season.”(IV, ii, 57)  Young Siward was yet another man of honour, as he “paid a soldiers’ debt [and could not have died] a fairer death.”(V, viii, 81)  Shakespeare opposed the dishonorable and disloyal Macbeth against the honorable characters of Macbeth to compose the theme of honor and loyalty as a key element woven into the image patterns and themes of Macbeth.

        Shakespeare created an evil presence throughout Macbeth, making it one of the more important themes.  The evil theme has three key facets: it is contrary to human nature, it disrupts natural order, and it is a disease.  In committing murder against Duncan, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth went against their natures, as Macbeth went against his honor and loyalty towards his king and Lady Macbeth brought evil upon her.  Macbeth said “my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is but what is not.”(I, iii, 8)  Macbeth realized that to achieve the throne, he would have to go against his loyal nature, and commit a heinous and evil act.  Even with this realization, Macbeth pushed forward, as he uttered “stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires.”(I, v, 11)  Macbeth commits the evil deed, causing him to become dishonorable and disloyal, and leading him to his demise. Lady Macbeth, through her ambition for his husband to become king, went against her nature and shouted “come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty!”(I, v, 12)  At that point, she called upon evil to help achieve the task to murder Duncan.  Lady Macbeth’s desire to become evil and to fulfill the conspiracy caused her to go mad, and by the end of the play, commit suicide.  The second facet of evil found in Macbeth is that it destroys natural order.  This was first shown after Duncan’s murder when Lennox said “the night has been unruly: where we lay, our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death, and prophesying with accents terrible of dire combustion and confused events new hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth was feverous and did shake.”(II, iii, 25-26) The act of murder on Duncan caused a disruption of the natural order.  The slain body of Duncan “look’d like a breach in nature for ruin’s wasteful entrance”(II, iii, 28), indicating even at this level nature has been disrupted.  From then on, Scotland is in shambles.  Macduff commented on this when he said “O nation miserable! With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter’d”(IV, iii, 63), being ruled by “Devilish Macbeth”(IV, iii, 63).  Natural order was finally restored to the land when Macbeth was beheaded.  Macduff remarked on this when he said “behold, where stands the usurper’s cursed head: the time is free.”(V, viii, 82)  Scotland was back to normal after the cause of its troubled times, Macbeth, was eliminated.  The third and final facet of evil presented in Macbeth is that evil is a disease.  This was first alluded to when Banquo said, after encountering the witches, “have we eaten the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?”(I, iii, 7), implying that the Witches’ evil presence deceived Banquo and Macbeth from reality.  Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s ambitions brought them to commit the evil deed, which caused them to reverse their good natures, like a disease. After Macbeth and Lady Macbeth committed the murder, they had an “affliction of terrible dreams that [shook them] nightly,”(III, ii, 38) as their evil deed gave them the affliction of nightmares.  Furthermore, the evil in Macbeth was commented by him as his “strange and self-abuse is the initiate fear that wants hard use”(III, v, 46), like a disease.  With the afflicted Macbeth as king of Scotland, the country becomes affected with a disruption of nature.  When Macduff beheaded Macbeth and the throne was handed over to Malcolm, the affliction was lifted from Scotland.  Evil is shown in Macbeth to infect individuals, like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as well as whole nations.  Shakespeare’s development of evil as a theme in Macbeth effectively adds to the weave of image patterns and themes found in it.

        Shakespeare, in his literary genius, made Macbeth one of the great theatrical tragedies by effectively weaving together an intricate set of image patterns and themes.  The use of the image patterns of time, sleep, night, fear, and blood create a powerful picture ever-present throughout Macbeth.  By the end of Macbeth, the reader sees a Scotland where “the time is free”(V, viii, 82) after Macbeth is dead, that they should fear things that go bump in the night, and that blood and sleep are key and sacred element of human nature.  Building upon these images, Shakespeare wields together the themes of ambition, fate and destiny, appearance versus reality, honor and loyalty, and evil.  These themes tell the reader that ambition can be bad, fate and destiny are not what one expects them to be, things do not always appear as they seem, honor and loyalty are desirable qualities, and evil is like a disease that afflicts nature.  By the end of Macbeth, the reader should have realized there is much more to it than the Witches “double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble”(IV, i, 51), as they should remember more importantly its images and themes Shakespeare presents, along with its perspectives on life, like this profound statement by Macbeth:  “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and the is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”(V, v, 77)