Motifs in macbeth full#

To prick the sides of my intent, but only At various points, Macbeth himself is aware of this tension, as you can see in these lines where he describes how he needs his ambition to succeed: Eventually, this pursuit of goals becomes Macbeth’s hamartia, or fatal flaw.Īs the play progresses, the tension increases between ambition and what must be sacrificed to achieve a goal. Together with his wife, Macbeth commits increasingly more violent acts to achieve his goal, sacrificing everything for ambition. The witches tell him he will become king, planting the seed of ambition in his soul. The title character of the play Macbeth is a Scottish general who listens to the prophecy of three witches. Macbeth doesn't believe that the wood and trees can move until we find out that the army uses the trees as camouflage and are able to move it.One of the strongest themes in Macbeth is ambition and the destruction that can happen when hubris and greed for power go unchecked. Symbol These two concepts can sometimes be confused with each other. A motif can be found in books, films, & poems. The child crowned means that the child of Duncan, Malcolm, will become king which happens in the end of the play. Blood & Water Motifs in Macbeth By: Davilynn & John Wesley 'What is a motif' A motif is a recurring symbol, such as an idea, an object, or a concept, which takes on a figurative meaning. The final apparition, says 'child crowned, with tree in hand and assures Macbeth that, 'Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against him'.

Motifs in macbeth full#

Macbeth is full of recurring references, allusions, images and. He was ripped from his mother's womb and we find out the casarean doesn't count as born from a woman. Variations upon a theme will reinforce the message. Macbeth then fears no one because everyone is born of a woman but Macduff isn't. The next apparition, says that, Macbeth must 'Be bloody, bold, and resolute laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth'. The first one says that 'armed Head', Macbeth thinks that it means beware Macduff but it actually is that Macduff in armor, head of the army will defeat Macbeth and chop his head off. When Macbeth visits the witches for the apparition, the witches that are working for the devil, equivocate all their apparitions. This in another equivocation but doesn't necessary make it a good thing. Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth embark upon their murderous journey, blood comes to symbolize their guilt, and they begin to feel that their crimes. The Catholic equivocators would tell the Protestants what they wanted to hear, but God would know that they would be telling the truth. Blood is everywhere in Macbeth, beginning with the opening battle between the Scots and the Norwegian invaders, which is described in harrowing terms by the wounded captain in Act 1, scene 2. If the Catholics told the Protestants that they were Catholics they would get in serious trouble and it would be a sin against God. The book was about how Catholics dealt with dangerous questions from Protestant inquisitors. This line is considered a reference to the book 'A Treatise of Equivocation'. In Act 2 Scene 3, when Macduff finds the bloody corpse of King Duncan, the porter that is still drunk from drinking in the night says that he is the porter of hell and says 'equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale'.

In Act 1 Scene 7, Macbeth says, 'False face must hide what the false heart doth know.' This is used quite often in Shakespeare's play, mostly with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth when they try to hide the fact the they plan to kill King Duncan. Equivocation is the use of ambiguous language to conceal the truth or to avoid committing oneself.