Themes and Symbols in Macbeth:
SLEEP: Insomnia – Upon Duncan’s murder a voice cries to Macbeth, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does
murder sleep.”
-Interrupted – Macbeth’s household has its sleep interrupted upon the discovery of Duncan’s murder (Regicide).
-Troubled – Lady Macbeth’s incurable sleepwalking
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BABIES AND CHILDREN: VULNERABILITY AND LOSS OF INNOCENCE:
-Death – Death is either chasing or claiming children and the innocent.
-Symbols – Macbeth imagines an infant cherub, and later a bloody baby represents Macduff’s unnatural birth.
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BLOOD AND WATER: Heroism and the persistence of guilt.
-Heroism – blood is attached to the service of the King
-Guilt – The bloody dagger; Lady Macbeth smearing blood on the guards; Banquo’s blood on his murderer’s face; and the imagination-produced blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands.
-Lady Macbeth is later haunted by her words that “A little water clears us of this deed.”
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REBELLION OF NATURE: The inversion of the natural order. (Regicide)
-The link between regicide and the rebellion of nature
-The sun is hidden in darkness following the night of Duncan’s murder
-Falcon killed by an owl; horses tearing at each other’s flesh
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GENDER: The aggression, vulnerability and the human condition.
-Lady Macbeth invokes the spirits to “unsex” her
-The ambiguously gendered, bearded sisters
-Lady Macbeth calls her husband’s manhood into question
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CLOTHING: Its inability to match position or moral equivalence.
-Clothing is a consistent metaphor of rank.
-“borrowed robes” referring to Macbeth’s receiving “Thane of Cawdor.”
-Macbeth’s new title, like new clothes must be worn before they will be comfortable. (Banquo’s statement)
-Angus characterizes Macbeth as a dwarf who has stolen a giant’s robe.
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DARKNESS: The cloaked suspension of righteousness.
-The cover of darkness; much of the play takes place at night or during daylight, which has been obscured.
-Both Duncan and Banquo’s murder take place at night.
-By the final act, the incessant darkness haunts Lady Macbeth, who orders candles be kept near her at all times.
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BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY: understanding the audience.
-King James I – although this play is not a model for the Christian story, it is filled with Christian symbolism and terms. Is Macbeth Adam to Lady Macbeth’s Eve? Is Duncan, who reminds Lady Macbeth of her father, and who has two men guarding him, who die right after him (The Two Thieves) a type of Christ? What about the doorman who playacts the doorman to Hell? And we have Macbeth donning the full armor of Seyton.
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EQUIVOCATION (APPEARANCE vs REALITY) - In Macbeth, appearances, like people, are frequently deceptive. And there is no one certain interpretation.
What's more, many of the play's most resonant images are ones that may not actually exist. Macbeth's bloody "dagger of the mind," the questionable appearance of Banquo's ghost and the blood that cannot be washed from Lady Macbeth's hands all blur the boundaries between what is real and what is imagined. This theme, of course, is closely related to the "Supernatural."