"Comment on the imagery in 'Macbeth'".

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Sam Todd        1/1/01        10G

“Comment on the imagery in ‘Macbeth’”

In ‘Macbeth’, Shakespeare has produced some very powerful images that can, and definitely did, induce certain emotions in the audience. The play to an Elizabethan audience would have been both scary and horrifying. The way Shakespeare achieved this was through the use of the imagery of- clothes, light and dark, the unnatural, blood, animals and disease. The opening scene with the witches is full of imagery, such as the storm and dark weather. This is important because the opening scene is the scene that captures the imagination of the audience and persuades them to stay.

One of the most obvious themes in ‘Macbeth’ that recurs throughout the play is the theme of clothing. Clothes are used as metaphors for positions of power, with titles and Thane-ships being described as robes- “The thane of Cawdor lives, why do you dress me in borrowed robes?” (Act 1 Scene 3) In this section of text Macbeth is basically trying to find out why the title of ‘Thane of Cawdor’ is being given to him if the current thane is still living, it is just that the metaphor of clothes is being used, in this case ‘robes’. Just a few moments later while Macbeth is contemplating what the witches prophecy means in the light of what has happened in the last section, Banquo murmurs- “New honours come upon him like our strange garments.” (Act 1 Scene 3) Yet another reference using clothes as a metaphor, this time instead of ‘robes’ Shakespeare has used ‘garments’.

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As mentioned before there are still another 5 main images that recur throughout the play and the next is ‘light and dark’. For the Elizabethan actors there were very few fancy props and scene changes that could be made as they are in modern plays, this forced them to use candles and torches to their best effect. The light cast by a candle is not all that bright but does in fact cast a large shadow. Effective positioning of these candles could place an actor either in a pool of light in the same fashion of a spotlight or in ...

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