Images and Symbols in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

If we are talking about literature, nothing is put randomly in a literary work. Shakespeare uses many images in his plays, and each of them symbolizes significant things. Here are some of the images and symbols Shakespeare uses in Macbeth.

In the play, Macbeth starts to have visions and hallucinations from the beginning of Act 2 and Scene 1 when Macbeth decides to kill Duncan. Alone, Macbeth sees a bloody dagger floating in the air. He can't grasp it and decide whether it's a phantom or his imagination.

• DAGGER

This soliloquy of Macbeth in Act 2, Scene 1, demonstrates his feelings of guilt and self-loathing and foreshadows the madness that will consume him and Lady Macbeth in the aftermath of Duncan's murder. This soliloquy includes various types of sensory imagery, such as this dagger vision. Macbeth's senses become muddled, and he struggles to determine whether the dagger that he sees pointing the way to Duncan's chamber is real or not.

• BLOOD

Blood is always closely linked to violence, but throughout Macbeth, blood comes to symbolize something else: guilt. Death and killing happen in an instant, but blood remains and stains. At times when both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel most guilty, they despair that they will never be able to wash the blood that stands for their guilt off their hands.

• GHOST

As we know, Shakespeare likes to add ghosts and spirits to haunt characters by guilt-tripping them and taking advantage of their bad mental conditions through their sins. It is pretty similar in Macbeth too.

When Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost sitting in a seat, he cannot be sure whether it is real or not. This indicates the uncertainty and emphasizes that Macbeth’s fate is part of him due to his ambitious character and his guilt. Also, when the ghost reappears, Macbeth is horrified and begins yelling at it. Lady Macbeth attempts to downplay her husband's unusual behavior. The ghost vanishes once more. Macbeth is surprised that everyone could be so calm in the face of such images. This shows that Macbeth has grown so distorted that he can no longer recognize the difference between what is real and what is not real. This is also a foreshadowing of Macbeth’s growing guilt, and it will cause his devastation.

• SLEEP

Lady Macbeth, who once naively thought she could just wash her hands and forget Duncan's murder, is now sleepwalking and so full of guilt that she imagines her hands are always covered in blood.

When he murders Duncan, Macbeth thinks he hears a voice say, "Macbeth does murder sleep" (2.2.34). Sleep symbolizes innocence, purity, and peace of mind, and in killing Duncan Macbeth, he murders sleep. For instance, Lady Macbeth sleepwalks, and his nightmares haunt Macbeth. This is similar to Brutus’ case in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when Brutus had trouble sleeping after betraying Caesar and lost peace in his mind.

That is why one of the most important symbols in Shakespeare's plays is sleep because insomnia is believed to be one of the problems of chaos, uncertainty, and psychological disturbance.

Sources Cited:

• Shakespeare - Macbeth (The Tragedy of Macbeth)
• Florman, Ben. "Macbeth Symbols: Visions and Hallucinations." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 22 July 2013. Web. 16 December 2023.