73 pages • 2 hours read
William ShakespeareMacbeth
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1623A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Blood
Blood appears frequently throughout the play: on the dagger soaked in blood, the bloodstained hands, or the blood smeared on the face of the murderer. In each case, the blood appears when it has been or is about to be unjustly spilled in an act of violence that contravenes fundamental moral principles. In the play, the sight of blood underscores the extent to which the boundaries of acceptable moral behavior have been contravened.
Even more important than tangible blood is blood that is hallucinated by guilty characters. After Duncan’s murder, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth begin to imagine blood everywhere. They cannot wash it away because this blood is a psychological manifestation of their shame. In the play, wrongdoing causes madness, loosening the characters’ grip on reality.
But also represents legacy. Duncan’s son Malcolm is his ‘blood’, just as Fleance is the continuation of Banquo’s bloodline, which is set to inherit the throne (which is what happened to the historical figure Fleance is based on). Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, however, have no heirs and no bloodline to leave behind. The only legacy they leave is the blood they have spilled rather than the blood that they have helped to create.
Nature and the Supernatural
The natural and the supernatural are in conflict throughout the play, symbolizing a moral decay and corruption inhabiting its world. Nature reacts to the supernatural with chaos, functioning as a motif for the changing circumstances of the play.
One example of this is the weather, which often reflects characters’ emotional states or the disruption of natural laws. For instance, every appearance by the witches is accompanied by thunder and lightning. The supernatural discombobulates the natural order, which tries to fight back.
The witches are the vehicle through which supernatural chaos enters the world. They impart prophecies, stir potions, and conjure visions, all of which seek to contravene established but unspoken laws like fate, morality, guest rite, and divine kingship. After the disruption of these laws, nature revolts, symbolize the extent to which Macbeth’s insidious actions have destabilized the world. The weather becomes more tumultuous, a hawk attacks an owl, and Duncan’s horses try to eat one another.
But whereas Macbeth first seems to thrive from the disruptions, they soon overcome him. He becomes the victim of the unnatural, as a forest moves across a plain and his nemesis turns out to have been born not in the usual manner. Macbeth’s own predilection and investment in the supernatural overwhelms him and, like everything Macbeth attempts, it soon spirals out of control.
Ultimately, the natural order is restored when Duncan’s rightful heir is enthroned. Malcolm becoming the king of Scotland is a triumph for the natural over the supernatural.
Prophecies
There are numerous prophecies in the play, given to Macbeth and Banquo by three witches. When the first of these comes true, Macbeth fixates on them—they speak to his innate ambition. The prophecies acts as corruptors, turning Macbeth’s character traits to their darkest versions.
But the prophecies carry multiple meanings. Rather than benefiting Macbeth, they exist to sew chaos—the agenda of the witches and Hecate. That Macbeth never considers the possibilities behind the prophecies reflects his arrogance and the extent to which his corrosive ambition has tainted his good sense.
There is also a question of whether the prophecies are self-fulfilling. Would Macbeth have murdered Duncan if he hadn’t heard that he would one day be king? The prophecies are thus a means of interrogating the notion of fate. Was Macbeth fated to be driven mad by ambition even if his fatal flaw always existed within him?
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