Blood Motifs In Macbeth

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare there are many motifs that are constantly at use. For instance, the word blood, appearing 34 times throughout the play, was a very engaging motif within every act and scene of the play. The main character of the play, Macbeth, was an ambitious war hero who became bloodthirsty subsequent to hearing from the three witches that he will become king. After he killed the king with the help of his wife’s persuasion, he went from an admired warrior to a serial killing tyrant. Shakespeare’s application of the word blood in the beginning acts was a way to convey honor, and heroic acts, however the perception soon turned to guilt, betrayal, and violence. At the beginning of the play, blood gave the audience and characters a sense of bravery for Macbeth as a heroic leader of the Scottish army. On the other hand, it was even used by Duncan when he questioned “What bloody man is that?” (1.2.1). He had asked this to his son Malcolm when he came to find his son with the wounded captain. In this instance, blood was used not to reference murder, or violence such as one would see later on in the play, but instead, it was simply …show more content…
The murder of the king became a loss of innocence for Macbeth and his wife in that Lady Macbeth had never taken part in a murder, whereas Macbeth had never killed anyone who was not an enemy of war, let alone his own King. Later, Lady Macbeth speaks of how she did not think “...the old man to have so much blood in him…” (5.1.34-35) while hallucinating. A possible reason for her misconception on how much blood was to be in a person was as a result of not having any idea of what a murder scene would be like or what she was taking part in prior to the murder. Additionally, she had never anticipated such guilt to come from her actions and she expresses that with guilt and blood being used