Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Blood
Blood is everywhere in Macbeth, beginning
with the opening battle between the Scots and the Norwegian invaders,
which is described in harrowing terms by the wounded captain in
Act 1, scene 2. Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their
murderous journey, blood comes to symbolize their guilt, and they
begin to feel that their crimes have stained them in a way that
cannot be washed clean. “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this
blood / Clean from my hand?” Macbeth cries after he has killed Duncan,
even as his wife scolds him and says that a little water will do
the job (2.2.58–59). Later,
though, she comes to share his horrified sense of being stained:
“Out, damned spot; out, I say . . . who would have thought the old
man to have had so much blood in him?” she asks as she wanders through
the halls of their castle near the close of the play (5.1.30–34).
Blood symbolizes the guilt that sits like a permanent stain on the
consciences of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, one that hounds them
to their graves.
The Weather
As in other Shakespearean tragedies, Macbeth’s grotesque
murder spree is accompanied by a number of unnatural occurrences
in the natural realm. From the thunder and lightning that accompany
the witches’ appearances to the terrible storms that rage on the
night of Duncan’s murder, these violations of the natural order
reflect corruption in the moral and political orders.
