Реферат на тему Macbeth Essay Essay Research Paper I
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Macbeth Essay Essay, Research Paper
I am going to prove that in the play
Macbeth, a symbol of blood is portrayed often(and with different meanings),
and that it is a symbol that is developed until it is the dominating theme
of the play towards the end of it.
To begin with, I found the word “blood”,
or different forms of it forty-two times (ironically, the word fear is
used forty-two times), with several other passages dealing with the symbol.
Perhaps the best way to show how the symbol of blood changes throughout
the play, is to follow the character changes in Macbeth. First he
is a brave honoured soldier, but as the play progresses, he becomes a treacherous
person who has become identified with death and bloodshed and shows his
guilt in different forms.
The first reference of blood is one of
honour, and occurs when Duncan sees the injured sergeant and says “What
bloody man is that?”. This is symbolic of the brave fighter who been
injured in a valiant battle for his country. In the next passage,
in which the sergeant says “Which smok’d with bloody execution”, he is
referring to Macbeth’s braveness in which his sword is covered in the hot
blood of the enemy.
After these few references to honour, the
symbol of blood now changes to show a theme of treachery and treason.
Lady Macbeth starts this off when she asks the spirits to “make thick my
blood,”. What she is saying by this, is that she wants to make herself
insensitive and remorseless for the deeds which she is about to commit.
Lady Macbeth knows that the evidence of blood is a treacherous symbol,
and knows it will deflect the guilt from her and Macbeth to the servants
when she says “smear the sleepy grooms with blood.”, and “If he do bleed,
I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal, for it must seem their guilt.”
When Banquo states “and question this most bloody piece of work,” and Ross
says “is’t known who did this more than bloody deed?”, they are both inquiring
as to who performed the treacherous acts upon Duncan. When Macbeth
is speaking about Malcolm and Donalbain, he refers to them as “bloody cousins”
A final way, and perhaps the most vivid
use of the symbol blood, is of the theme of guilt. First Macbeth
hints at his guilt when he says “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood clean from my hand?”, meaning that he wondered if he would ever be
able to forget the dastardly deed that he had committed. Then the
ghost of Banquo, all gory, and bloody comes to haunt Macbeth at the banquet.
The sight of apparitions represents his guilt for the murder of Banquo
which he planned. Macbeth shows a bit of his guilt when he says “It
is the bloody business which informs thus,” he could not get the courage
to say murder after he had killed Duncan, so he says this instead.
Lady Macbeth shows the most vivid example of guilt using the symbol of
blood in the scene in which she walks in her sleep. She says “Out
damned spot! Out I say! One: two: why then ’tis time to do’t: hell
is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need
we fear who knows it when none can call out power to account? Yet
who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”.
This speech represents the fact that she cannot wipe the blood stains of
Duncan off of her hands. It is ironic, that she says this, because
right after the murder, when Macbeth was feeling guilty, she said “A little
water clears us of this deed.” When the doctor of the castle finds
out about this sleepwalking, he tells Macbeth “As she is troubled with
thick-coming fantasies,”. What this means, is that Lady Macbeth is
having fantasies or dreams that deal with blood. Macbeth knows in his mind
that she is having troubles with her guilt, but does not say anything about
it.
Just before the ending of the play, Macbeth
has Macduff at his mercy, and lets him go, because of his guilt.
He shows that he is guilty, when he says “But get thee back, my soul is
too much charg’d with blood of thine already.”. Of which, Macduff
replies, “I have no words, my voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
than terms can give thee out.”
After the death of Macbeth at the hands
of Macduff, the symbolic theme of blood swings back to what it was at the
beginning of the play. It is the symbol of honour to Malcolm this
time. The death of Macbeth is honoured feat that Macduff is congratulated
for.
So as we have seen meaning of the
symbol of blood change from honour to treachery, and then to guilt, after
this, it returns to the symbolic meaning of honour once again after the
villain that changed the meaning from honour to tyranny is killed.
Due to these many changes, it has been proved that the symbol of blood
has many different meanings which can be attributed to it throughout the
course of this play.