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This point is both a step forward and a step back for Macbeth; his former friend Banquo is dead, removing a source of suspicion, but Banquo's son lives, ready for revenge. The blood Macbeth sees on the murderer's face reflects both his rise to power and his fall from grace.
Before this scene, however, Macbeth murders King Duncan. He almost does not go through with it, but for Lady Macbeth convincing him first that he is no man if he does not, and second by outlining how they'll get away with it: "what not put upon / His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt" (1, 7, 70-1). The word "spongy" refers both to the fact that they are going to get the officers drunk, and that the officer's clothes will soak up the blood from the daggers. In the scene after the murder, Lady Macbeth tells her husband to "wash this filthy witness from your hand" and "smear / the sleepy grooms with blood (II, 2, 44; 46-7). Just as in the later scene with Banquo's murderer, blood marks both a step forward and an immersion into evil; the result of Macbth's ambition is blood. In this same scene, Macbeth reveals that he could not say "Amen" when the guards said "God bless us": "But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'? / I had most need of blessing" (II, 2, 28-9). This inability is a symbol of the evil of which Macbeth is now a...
After Macbeth has become king, many of the other Scottish nobles rise up in rebellion. Lady Macbeth has basically gone insane, sleepwalking and talking distractedly, rubbing her hands and saying "Out, damned spot! out, I say!...who would have though the old / man to have had so much blood in him?" (V, 1, 35). Lady Macbeth cannot wash the imaginary blood from the crimes off her hand; she has descended into madness along with her evil. It was largely her persuasion that drove Macbeth to commit the first bloody murder of Kin Duncan, but he was quick to pick up on the effectiveness of violence, murdering his friend without much thought, only regretting it in his later guilt.
Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffer from a surfeit of ambition, and each step in their path up towards the throne and down towards the bowels of human behavior is accompanied by blood, whether it be real, imagined, or both. Blood is something directly tied to royalty; the issues of heredity were major problems during Shakespeare's day and the Scottish King James' rise to the throne. Perhaps part of the message of this play is not…
" (I.v.64-66). She even summons the spirits to free her from the weakness of femininity "Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here" (I.v.41-42) because she associates cruelty and lack of remorse with manhood. In many cases, politics is about what takes place behind the cameras in the sense that rivalry, treason and the corruptive influence of ambition are never expressed in an open manner, but
In short, he chooses evil over good. Macbeth somehow justifies murdering Banquo and Fleance, which demonstrates his deteriorating mental state. He did not struggle with murdering them as he did with Duncan. He says: For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd; Put rancours in the vessel of my peace Only for them; and mine eternal jewel Given to the common enemy of man, To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! (III.i. 65-69). Macbeth no
To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like th' innocent flower, But be the serpent under't. He that's coming Must be provided for; and you shall put This night's great business into my dispatch, Which shall to all our nights and days to come Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. (I.v, 60-70). Macbeth shows no ill intent towards his king when he informs his wife that
Macbeth and Oediups Rex are great tragedies from two very different time periods. Even though such different writers wrote them, and in such different times, the similarities that exist between the two are remarkable. Shakespeare and Sophocles both understood exactly what it took to write great tragedy. By comparing how fate plays a part in each play, it is better seen that perhaps Sophocles and Shakespeare were on similar wavelengths.
Macbeth and the Spanish Tragedy Viewed Through Female Eyes Women and power are often viewed as anathema in the conventional view of Jacobean drama, although ironically the dramatic form reached its height during the reign of Elizabeth. Lady Macbeth is often cited as proof positive that women in tragedy are seen as sources of negative, rather than positive power when they exercise statesmanship and personal choice. But Shakespeare's Lady and also
Macbeth The marriage relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is ironically close, given their overwhelming personal ambitions. Throughout the play, the couple bonds over murder, guilt, and a hunger for the throne. Driven by their individual desires to attain and maintain a position of power in Scotland, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth feed off of each other. However, their relationship disintegrates not because they lack love or respect for one another, but