Blood And Guilt In Macbeth

Blood can be a terrifying reminder of a past event. For instance, it is extremely difficult to completely cleanse everything that blood comes into contact with; as a result, the reminder eats away at one’s conscience making a potential emotion of guilt or regret. In William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, several murders have been performed. The beginning of these resulted in a bloody ending; however, as the play progresses, the amount of blood and guilt within Macbeth becomes less and less. These two components work hand in hand to illustrate the idea that greater amounts of blood shown throughout the scenes cause a higher level of guilt to take place; in addition, as blood becomes absent so does the emotion of guilt inside Macbeth. By the time he himself is killed, the guilt present is nonexistent. Therefore, the symbol of blood was portrayed by Shakespeare to depict the theme of guilt. The first murder that resulted in a bloody ending occurred when Macbeth took the life of his king, Duncan. His initial intention was to simply kill Duncan to gain power quicker, but it soon turned into a scene of him trying to live with his drastic decision to take someone’s life for reasons he was …show more content…
In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, Macbeth struggles with his own guilty conscience throughout. Even though he feels extremely guilty and confused in the beginning, he shortly revises those feelings until they have altogether been vanished. The initial display of guilt is associated with the first murder scene, which resulted in a bloody ending. Therefore, the volume of blood corresponds with how much guilt Macbeth displays. Shakespeare depicted the symbol of blood to correlate with the emotion of guilt to illustrate Macbeth’s conscience as he performed and witnessed the horrendous murders of virtuous