Blood Symbolism in “Macbeth”

Everybody has blood in their body, but how much does Macbeth's have on his hands.The play is about Macbeth’s rise to power. He meets three witches who tells his fate. But instead of him let it come naturally he tries to speed the process of him becoming king. Which would have dreadful consequences.One of the symbols that shows this type of down fall is blood. Blood in this story could mean a multitude of things; it could mean guilt, actual blood, and Macbeth's ambitions and thirst for power. These are just the symbolism i could find about blood.

One of the things could mean is guilt .The term “blood on my hands” is a commonly used to show guilt.This evidence can be found in Act 2 Scene 2 it reads “ will all, great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands”. This contributes to the theme of guilt. This evidence shows that Macbeth cant cope with the fact that he killed a man.As the story progress it shows the guilt gets to him, and starts to tear hi sanity apart.This is a good metaphor for the whole story in my opinion.

Another symbol blood can be interpreted is actual blood.Yes,I said actually blood. Like the blood in your body.This can be shown by countless examples of people killing other people in this book.But in this paper I am just going to use my favorite scene to showcase this type of symbolism.In Act 1 Scene 5 it reads “I have done thee deed.Didst Thou not hear noise”.This show how he reacts to actually killing someone.This is the best line hands down ,because someone actually dies. I think the symbol is almost similar to guilt but this is more about the soliloquy than the actual murder. A noble man turns because of his fate being revealed. This is leterial and fugeritive blood.Those are the reasons why I like this scene the most.

The third and final reason is the meaning of Macbeth's burning ambitions to be king. This is shown a whole lot in this in the book. The blood of his enemies drives him closer to his main goal of the book. This shows Macbeths flaws as a character in the play.This in my opinion shows the thirst for power and the blood is what keeps him hydrated in this hustle.He sees the prophecy as truth and tries to beat around it.This shows his ambitions and his aragrance.In the play it states in Act 3 Scene 4 “...forin my you say it lies stars hide your fires let light see by blyk and deep desires”.This shows his thirst for power ,and in this story hear his fate from three witches” This show that the witches boosted his ambitions in the story,too. This speed his ambitions for power in the story to the point of murdering people for that position of power. His lust of power was given a boost because of these events, and probably would have never had died if he wasn't so intrigued by these old ragged witches.This is what really killed Macbeth(and a sword form somebody who was born of c-section).

In conclusion,this story is truly a tragedy that a man with great ambitions was told its fate to early, which drove this man mad and gave him a thirst for power.The symbol of blood is here to help convey one of many themes that are discussed through this story. Blood im my opinion is one of the most important symbols in this story hands down.With it showing guilt, actual blood ,and ambitions. This is up there with Romeo and Juliet in the tragedy and irony department(also R&J is overrated). This shows what happens when you give a mere mortal man the foresight of the gods, and tries to use it for evil or selfish ways. This is truly a “tragedy” what happened to Macbeth in the long run. How a man try to change his fate in mere months than just letting it happen normally beside just trying to do it naturally.And seeing the future was a gift and a curse, a blessing and a punishment because everything came full circle.

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