Macbeth

In March of 2015, my English class was assigned to read Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This play is about an Schottish knight that is told by three witches (aka. The Weird sisters) that he is going to become king of Scotland, so he (Macbeth) kills the king in order to crown himself and also kills many other people in order to keep himself in the throne (It is Shakespeare’s bloodiest play. You just open the book, and blood will come out like in the scene of the blood elevator scene of The Shining). I found a repeating pattern (aka. motif) about blood . According to an English teacher in Med High, the word “blood” is repeated more than 100 times thruought the play. So I dipped in this ocean of blood and gore to find quotes about this motif to see what it means (I need to test myself for AIDS).

In Act III, scene IV, lines 122 to 126, Macbeth says “I will have blood, they say; blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augurs and understood relations have by maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth the secret’ st man of blood.” To understand this quote we need to have in mind what happened in the play. After killing the king, Macbeth orders to some murderers to kill  Banquo, Macbeth’s closest firend, and his son, Fleance, because he fears that Banquo will kill him first in order to put Fleance in the throne. The murderers kill Banquo, but Fleance  escapes, and the murderers inform Macbeth that Fleance has escaped. In the quote of above, Macbeth fears that Banquo’s death will be revenged by some kind of karma in which Macbeth will be murdered, and when that happens, all the nasty, bloody, and despicable deeds that Macbeth has done in order to get where he is now will be exposed. In this phrase, mainly, the word “blood” is used to mean death by violent means (such murder).

Another example is in the same act, and in the same scene, but in lines 135 to 140. Macbeth says “For mine own good, all causes shall give way. I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er. Strange things I have in head , that will to hand, which must be acted ere they may be scanned.” In this quote,  besides that Macbeth is saying explicitly that he has issues (“Strange things I have in head…”), Macbeth realizes that he has already done so many nasty things, but he can’t stop, because if he does, he will lose everything. Therefore he has to continue and he must protect himself by doing whatever he has to do in order to remain in the power. Like in the  first phrase, “blood” is used to refer to violent deaths.

In conclusion, the motif of blood is used to refer of the murders that happened, are happening, and are going to happen; all of them caused by Macbeth’s ambition for the throne. This motif indicates us that Macbeth is about murderes, treason, and bad stuff, but also it makes to ask to the audience “How far is a person willing to go because of ambition?”.

This is how the stage ends by the end of Macbeth.