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Essay: Uncovering Macbeth’s Symbols of Blood and Sleep: How Shakespeare Corrupted the Great Chain of Being.

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  • Published: 23 March 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Words: 1,402 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 6 (approx)
  • Tags: Macbeth essays

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William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, written between 1605-1606 for King James I shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth I was derived from Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Ireland and Scotland, published between 1577 and 1587. It is set in medieval Scotland and focuses on the predictions of three witches. This is intriguing because many people in the audience had a strong belief in witches during the Jacobean era and, in fact, King James I had himself written a book called Demonology, published in 1597, in which he created a vast conspiracy about witches to undermine the nation. The play Macbeth, discusses a loyal warrior called Macbeth who fights for his king. In the beginning of the play, the kingdom of Scotland defeats the Norwegians and Macbeth is the hero of the battle. At the end of the battle Macbeth receives message from evil. He is tricked into killing his own king disturbing the great chain of being. Guilt and disruption of his mind overtakes Macbeth and he starts going crazy. This is shown throughout the play with the symbol of Blood and sleep. In the early parts of the play blood it shown as a symbol of heroism and valour, however it quickly escalates to a symbol of guilt and treason. Moreover, sleep signifies the disruption of the protagonist mind, it is not normal to not be able to sleep. Not only has he disturbed the great chain of being, but he has disturbed his own spiritual peace. In this essay blood and sleep will be analysed to see how

In the play blood has many different meanings depending on the particular point in the drama’s plot. In the opening one, Macbeth is described killing the king of Norway, “Till he unseamed him from the nave to th’ chops”. This shows that Macbeth is fearless and masculine but most importantly very violent; he is already a killer. The use of the word ‘unseam’, emphasizes the inner brutality of Macbeth and that he is vulnerable to corruption. This prepares the audience for when he will betray and kill in a different context. Shakespeare then goes on and writes “and fixed his head upon our battlements.” This foreshadows the end of the story when Macbeth, a traitor then, will get the same fate from MacDuff than the one he gave to the Norwegian King. Shakespeare uses visual imagery of blood to describes Macbeth as a hero. Here blood means how many people he killed and how good of a warrior he is, and by killing the King of Norway he made more blood fall. This emphasizes the fact that he is an extraordinary warrior. However, it also subtly foreshadows his vulnerability to corruption and even his own violent death.

Later in the play, we see lady Macbeth requesting the presence of the ‘murdering minister’ to “unsex me here” and “make thick my blood”. These imperatives foreshadow the King’s death as Lady Macbeth is trying to stop being human and have evil give her psychological strength. Shakespeare uses alliteration of m’s “murdering minister” and “make think my blood” to demonstrate that she is appealing to supernatural forces to stand out and to make herself more masculine, in order to corrupt Macbeth’s mind. If Lady Macbeth is more masculine then Macbeth, he could easily get morally corrupted by her, into killing. When Shakespeare wrote the play having thin blood was considered to be pure and thick blood was a sign of poison in yourself, hence why Lady Macbeth wants ‘thick’ blood, to kill without remorse and fulfil her ambitions. In this part of the play we can clearly see that blood has changed its meaning from being a symbol of heroism to a symbol of corruption and disruption of one’s mind. As well as using blood so symbolize corruption, and disruption of one’s mind, Shakespeare uses another liquid, milk, to show evil. Lady Macbeth says, “Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall”. In this quotation Lady Macbeth uses and imperative and shocking gustatory imagery to command the ‘murdering minister’ to change her mother milk into poisonous acid shows that part of her corruption is a desire to become less feminine but more masculine. Macbeth being controlled by Lady Macbeth is not convinced to kill the king, but lady Macbeth strongly desire him to do it. What the language of the quotation suggest is that her womanhood is what averts her from murder; her determination to become less feminine is another example of The Great Chain of Being broken with disastrous moral consequences. Once Macbeth was corrupted enough by Lady Macbeth, he does kill the King but hears ‘a voice cry’ “sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep”. This quotation shows that Macbeth has disturbed his own spiritual peace and will not ever be able to sleep as only the innocent mind can sleep. This is the beginning of his madness as grief and guilt will completely cause him to feel only ‘restless ecstasy’ later on, and envy how Duncan ‘sleeps well’ in death. He has just only understood the consequences of his actions. By shedding blood Macbeth has disturbed the legitimate blood line, one of the kings and therefore has broken the great chain of being; this immense guilt will put his moral at questions. Macbeth has just ironically made his blood line illegitimate by shedding blood: he can neither ‘sleep’ now, nor even connect with God an ‘say amen’.

Further on in the play, Macbeth gets overwhelmed by guilt and is describing the blood on his hands as a unremovable viscous substance which even “great Neptune’s ocean” will not be able to wipe away. The use of this hyperbole shows how Macbeth has started to recognize that his guilt will never be washed off even with a very large amount of water, and that if the blood can be washed of in the physical world, in the spiritual one it will always be on his hands. This immense guilt will poison the world around him which he analyses with Neptune’s water and how his “thick” blood would “make the green one red”. This is the beginning of Macbeth’s spiritual peace disruption as hallucination start to appeal to him. This is very ironic as further on in the play Lady Macbeth speaks “a little water clears us of the deed”. Once again, we can see that Lady Macbeth has a great influence over Macbeth as she is telling him to get over it quickly when he is making it a big thing. It is now made clear that at this stage of the play she is not experiencing any feelings of guilt whereas Macbeth is slowly going crazy. This foreshadows Lady Macbeth future insanity because remorse has to come when you disturb the great chain of being. Shakespeare then writes “Hah! They pluck out mine eyes.” Which is a hallucination of hands plucking out his eyes in punishment for his crime. This crime has mentally blinded him, the metaphor “pluck out mine eyes” relates to the myth of Oedipus. The myth of Oedipus is about a boy who kills his dad and marries his mother. When he learns the truth, he blinds himself. This is very symbolic as he was blind his whole life to the truth and did not want to see it. This strongly relates to Macbeth as he was blind to the consequences of his actions and he refused to see them, but now that he knows the consequences he is feeling as if his becoming mentally blind. Shakespeare’s use of Hypophora “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No;” illustrates how Macbeth is fully aware of the wrongness and the immorality of his actions of disturbing the great chain of being. This crime disturbing him is followed by some supernatural events, as he is starting to hear a strange knocking, “Whence is that knocking”. Shakespeare usage of staging and noises is frightening Macbeth, and they seem to threaten divine judgement. Shakespeare then uses a rhetorical question to illustrate the idea that Macbeth is not expecting an answer as only he can understand his fears, “How is ’t with me when every noise appals me?”. Moreover, this shows that he is spiritually disturbed and cannot be helped as even he cannot understand his problems.

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