mcbeth

Ms. Palleschi
World LIterature
14 May, 2012 Shakespeare expresses different sorts of imagery throughout his play written play, “Macbeth.” Macbeth encounters illusions, hallucinations and apparitions throughout the play that symbolize other meaning and have an affect on later events that lead him to his downfall. He had an illusion of a dagger pointing to King Duncans’ room before he murdered him. He had a hallucination about his friend Banquo after he had murdered him. Macbeth was told three apparitions by witches about how he would die which weren’t meant to be true but happened in ways he didn’t fully expect. “Is this a dagger which I see before me/The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee/I have thee not, and yet I see thee still/Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible/ To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but/A dagger of the mind, a false creation/Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?/I see thee yet, in form as palpable/As this which now i draw/Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going/And such an instrument I was to use/Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’ other senses/Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still/And on thy blade the dudgeon gouts of blood/Which was not so before. There’s no such thing/It is the bloody business which informs/Thus to mine eyes." (2.1.33-48).
Macbeth is getting prepared to commit the crime of murdering King Duncan. He gets so nervous and overwhelmed by the situation that he has an illusion of a dagger. He can see it but he knows it’s not real because as he tries to grab it he can’t touch it. This was the first murder he was going to commit, therefor he became so nervous and overwhelmed that caused his mind to create an illusion. As the dagger turns and points to Duncan’s room, it’s actually just his mind showing him what he’s about to do. He sees blood on it because he knows that it’s going to be used for the for the murder he is going to commit. By Macbeth seeing a dagger pointing to where the murder will be with blood already on it, it’s showing him a glimpse of what will happen, not what might happen. “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth/hide thee/Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold/Thou hast no speculation in those eyes/Which thou dost glare with!” (3.492-96). Macbeth murdered his friend Banquo. Murdering someone, especially a friend isn’t something that is easy to ignore deal with. He felt that he did what he needed to do to be king. He had a plate set up for his friend so that when other guest arrived to eat it would look as if he didn’t know Banquo was dead. The death of Banquo had yet to be announced so if he knew Banquo was dead everyone would know that he was the one that killed him. Although he tried to act normal and pretend as if he knew nothing of Banquo’s whereabouts, he could not escape his guilt. Banquo appeared in front of Macbeth in his chair where he was supposed to be sitting to eat. Macbeth was astonished at what he saw and started yelling at Banquo to get out of his sight. He told Banquo to stop looking at him with eyes he couldn’t see with. A dead person has no eyes so he shouldn’t be able to see and he shouldn’t be there looking at Macbeth. That’s why Macbeth is telling him to stop starring at him with eyes he doesn’t have. Banquo supposedly shakes his gory locks at Macbeth and he yells at him to stop. His hair is bloody and gory because Macbeth had killed him. The blood on his hair and all over him shows that Banquo didn’t take an easy murder and that it was messy with an immense amount of blood and gore. He says that there is no marrow in his bones which means that Banquo shouldn’t be able to move his body and function. Macbeth also tells him that his blood is cold. When someones blood is cold it sums up the fact that they’re dead. The fact that Lady Macbeth tries to tell him to stop and that the fact that his guest leaving didn’t stop him from talking to a ghost really proved that Macbeth couldn’t handle the pressure and guilt and was losing his mind. “Double, double toil and trouble/ Fire burn and cauldron bubble” (4.1.35-36). The three witches in the stories read Macbeth’s prophecy for him while pretending to a reading through cooking in their cauldron. They read him three apparitions which they make up to tease him, but actually end up coming true in a way Macbeth didn’t expect, leading to his downfall. “First Apparition: an armed head.” (4.1.68). This apparition tells him to beware Macduff. The armed head is supposed to be Macbeth’s head. It shows that Macbeth’s death would be a decapitation and the fact that it was armored shows that he would probably die in battle, which he did. “Second Apparition: a bloody child” (4.1.76). This apparition is telling Macbeth that he will die from someone not born of a woman. When Macbeth is in battle he doesn’t see Malcolm as a threat because he knows he was born from a woman. When Malcolm tells Macbeth that he’s going to kill him Macbeth says only one not born from a woman can. He took the term too literal and Malcolm explained that he was born from a woman but he was a born through a sea section, which is what the true meaning behind the apparition was. This probably cause Macbeth to be astonished and lose focus and confidence in his battle because soon after, he was killed by Malcolm. “Third Apparition: a child crowned/ with a tree in one hand” (4.1.87). This was telling him that he can not be conquered till Birnam Wood marches against him. In the battle between him and Malcolm with his army of 10,000, Malcolm told his army cut a bough so that they may camouflage when they’re on their way to Dunsane castle. When they finally pass the woods it looks as is if the woods is moving towards the castle because of the camouflage they have on themselves. This is how the battle began and how Macbeth was led to his death. “An adequate explanation of witchcraft, then, needs to have a double focus: on one hand, it must describe the actual beliefs and explain how they fit within a particular cosmetology; on the other hand, it must take into account the function of such beliefs...” Macbeth’s apparitions tell him how he will die in a riddle but not exactly in detail. A witch gives a riddle and tricks on how thing happen and it was his duty to desipher the meaning and not take into such literal term. Because he did so, he overestimated his ability to be invincible and it killed him. Shakespeare has imagery in his play that is not explained in words throughout. It requires critical thinking and analyzing what his play was and how everything came to be about. He had an illusion of a dagger when he was going to kill King Duncan. He had an illusion about his friend Banquo at dinner after he had murdered him and was told three apparitions by witches that told him how he was going to die. Macbeth encountered illusions, hallucinations, and apparitions throughout the play which had caused him to go crazy and led him to his tragic death.