Role Of Motifs In Macbeth

A motif is a dominant idea that brings out certain features in a literary composition and is usually repeated throughout a play or story. Motifs are common features when considering reading Shakespeare’s captivating Macbeth. They give the reader a difficult task to interpret the play and figure out Shakespeare's bewildering concepts. The tragic flaws and conceptual schemes of the play can be better understood through the distinctive uses of blood, the hallucinations, evil, and gender. Blood is determined as many different symbolic meanings in the play, but some are very significant in figuring out Shakespeare’s misconceptions. Macbeth has many different emotions that contribute to his own degeneration. Macbeth portrays some fear as the …show more content…
Macbeth’s strong imagination ultimately leads to his immediate downfall and death. “Macbeth has’ an imagination of extraordinary power, which visualizes to the verge of delirium’” (Henry). Macbeth’s mind has taken over his physical conscious and he uses the witches for help which only digs him deeper into eternal rest. He thinks that he is the most powerful in the land and uses that to his advantage which is an ironic turning point in the play because his psychotic mind causes the opposite of what he expects. Macbeth’s self-credulity is very important to the plot in the case that it tempts him to commit murder. This reference states, “Macbeth’s imagination can shake him while yet only a murderous purpose” (Henry). As he sees that murder gets him what he wants, he continues to commit it. He is deceived by his own actions and does not see what is about to come that will change his life forever. As the play progresses, Macbeth starts to become aware of his hallucinations and starts to control his life again. A quote says, “What Macbeth hears is not Macduff and Lennox trying to awaken the Porter, but all the powers of hell and heaven knocking simultaneously at his heart” (Goddard, 277). Macbeth’s emotional structure is very unorganized and he is insane about what is …show more content…
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a sociological problem between men and women that adds more conflict towards their relationship. This quote states, “If he is a victim, though, so too is Lady Macbeth, for they both are prisoners of arbitrary cultural definitions of gender” (Semanza). The boundary between them is created by Shakespeare to cause that recurring conflict in the story to bring about stress and confusion to add to the death and murder. He wants to have as much conflict to equal up to all the dreadful actions performed by these too. But, Lady Macbeth believes that masculinity is better equipped for murder and violence. “Lady Macbeth asks to be ‘unsexed’ so that she might take the place of her husband, conjuring a fantasy of masculinity as cold-bloodedness, remorselessness, and unbounded determination” (Semanza). Lady Macbeth thinks that her husband is to weak to murder and she is willing to do what is necessary. Therefore, feminism is what causes their humanity to lead into catastrophic results like death and murder. If Lady Macbeth is not in the play, Macbeth would still value all those good qualities that he has because Lady Macbeth is the temptation for him to kill. “Lady Macbeth is able to denigrate her husband’s masculinity by suggesting that f masculinity equals action unimpeded by conscience, she must be more the man than he” (Semanza). As we have seen previously,