Literary Devices In Macbeth

   Shakespeare's "Macbeth" holds many hidden themes within its already exuberant plot.  The first of these surrounds the murder of Duncan and the role that both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself played.  However, the true guilt of the murder can fall on either character.  Although Macbeth physically committed the crime, it was Lady Macbeth that pushed him to his limits of rational thought and essentially made fun of him to lower his esteem.  With Macbeth's defenses down, it was an easy task for Lady Macbeth to influence Duncan's murder and make up an excuse as to why she could not do it herself.  The guilt of Duncan's murder can be placed firmly on the head on Lady Macbeth.

Imagine how dull a Shakespearean play would be without the ingenious literary devices and techniques that contribute so much to the fulfillment of its reader or viewer. Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, is a tragedy that combines fact and legend to tell the story of an eleventh century king. Shakespeare uses numerous types of literary techniques to make this tragic play more appealing. Three literary devices that Shakespeare uses to make Macbeth more interesting and effective are irony, symbolism, and imagery.

Macbeth is confused as he is arguing with himself on what he should do. He states reasons not to kill Duncan, because Macbeth is his noble kinsmen and the act would bring dishonor. However, he also states reason why he should kill him, because Macbeth will then become king and fulfill the witches ' fortune. Lady Macbeth, who appears in the beginning as the driving force for the murder of King Duncan, also develops internal conflict. At first, Lady Macbeth seems to be a woman of extreme confidence and will. But, as situations become more and more unstable in the play, guilt develops inside her. For instance, she exclaims; "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. / Look not so pale. I tell you again, Banquo 's / Burried; he cannot come out on 's grave" (Shakespeare V, ii, 65-67). Lady Macbeth sleepwalks and frets about her evil wrongdoings because she is extremely guilty of her influence on Macbeth to commit the murder. Lady Macbeth reacts emotionally and dwells on her actions as guilt eats at her soul.

Macbeth, a tragedy written by William Shakespeare and edited by Maynard Mack and Robert Boynton, displays the many ways in which guilt manifests itself and the effects it has on its victims. Throughout the play, characters including Lady Macbeth are deeply affected by guilt in ways they had never expected. Macbeth takes its audience on a journey through the process in which guilty gradually eats away at Lady Macbeth and forces her to do what she thinks is best. Though Lady Macbeth may have initially seemed unaffected by the murders she had been involved in, her desires eventually faded and were replaced with an invincible feeling of guilt which eventually took her life.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the theme of guilt and conscience is one of many explored throughout the play. Macbeth, is a well respected Scottish noble who in the beginning of the play is a man everyone looks up to; however as the play progresses he makes a number of bad decisions. Eventually, as a result of his actions he suffers guilt and this plays heavily upon his character until his personality is completely destroyed. Shakespeare uses a range of techniques in order to develop this theme such as, characters, imagery.

Guilt is a very strong and uncomfortable feeling that often results from one’s own actions. This strong emotion is one of the theme ideas in William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel guilt, but they react in different ways. Guilt hardens Macbeth, but cause Lady Macbeth to commit suicide. As Macbeth shrives to success guilt overcome’s Macbeth where he can no longer think straight. Initially Macbeth planned was to kill Duncan but it wasn’t enough he also had to kill Banquo and Macduff’s family. On the other hand Lady Macbeth had to call upon the weird sister to unsexed her so she had no true feeling towards anything as if she was a man. However, the true guilt of the murder

Without literary techniques most literature would be colorless. Therefore these techniques are very crucial in producing successful writing. Not only do they create interest, they also help in development of characters, this is especially depicted in the Shakespearean play, Macbeth. The characters developed from the different literary techniques such as irony, paradox, and imagery assist in conveying the many themes throughout the play.

Everyone deals with guilt at least one time throughout their life, and several authors use guilt to help build up suspense in their story. Guilt in Macbeth not only affects his mental state of mind, but it also destroys him physically, along with a few other characters such as Lady Macbeth. The characters are affected by guilt so much, that it actually leads to their death essentially, just because they were not able to handle the consequences for the events that occurred. Despite being destroyed by guilt, they were still forced to carry on with their lives and they did have to try to hide it, even though Macbeth was not doing so well with that. His hallucinations were giving him up and eventually everyone knew the he had murdered Duncan

Every one of Shakespeare 's plays are heavily imbedded with motifs. A motif is any element, subject, idea or concept that is constantly present through the entire body of literature. (motif) I chose to examine the play Macbeth. It is a very intense play full of violence, betrayal, and even the supernatural. It is well known to be saturated with themes and motifs that are repeated throughout the play. These motifs are important because they often foreshadow events on the play. They also create a atmosphere that helps shape the events of the play. I am going to focus on two motifs that seem to play a heavy role in the storyline of Macbeth. The two I have chose to focus on are the motifs of blood and nature. Since Macbeth is know for its violence blood is a very important part of the play. Nature also is representative of things to come and upsetting the natural balance of things. These are only a fraction of motifs that are present in this tragic play.

Lady Macbeth gives Macbeth the first push to kill Duncan, and she wants to be ruthless, feel no remorse so that she and her husband will successfully kill Duncan. She desires to “stop up th’ access and passage to remorse” (Shakespeare 1.5.51) so that she will not feel bad about the murder. She persuades Macbeth to kill Duncan, but he struggles afterward when he does not follow the plan and forgets to put back the daggers he cannot face the evil act he has committed. Lady Macbeth is satisfied after Macbeth is king, but that is not enough for him any longer. Eventually the killings take a toll on Macbeth’s mental state, and the guilt he begins to feel is unbearable. Macbeth kills Duncan and then says “this is a sorry sight”

The focus on this research are two motifs that have a major impact on the play. The two motifs are power and ambition. This research proves that these two motifs are the causes of death throughout Macbeth. The sources used to support this research were the play, data bases, and an overview of Macbeth. The play was a helpful source because it allowed quotes from the characters to back up the theory of power and ambition affecting the actions throughout the play.

Today, we can see the use of literary devices everywhere, from books, to even magazines. Literary devices help the reader, imagine and think critically while they’re reading the book. An important literary device is imagery, which helps the reader picture what's going on in the passage that they read. Many writers rely on imagery, which helps the reader imagine what’s happening in the reading. There are many examples of this literary device being used throughout history.

When you are reading the play Macbeth by Shakespeare it is filled with many themes like ambition, guilt, fate verse free will and things are not what they seem. Shakespeare has the play moving up and down with feelings and emotions based on his themes. He doses a fantastic job at doing this.

Theme is a central idea or message in a work of literature. Theme connects with all events of a story, however, it is not the moral of the story like many may think. Theme is interpreted by the reader. In other words, the theme is just almost every aspect of a story. For example, theme needs characters, protagonist, antagonist, conflict, and speaker to analyze what theme is in a story. The equation for theme is character + conflict and resolution = theme. The story of Antigone for example has many themes. Antigone is the story of a young girl, who's purpose is to honor her brother Polyneices in a burial. Both of her brothers killed each other, however Eteocles, her other brother, fought for the city and got an honorable burial, while Polynieces,

In the play, Macbeth, Shakespeare uses figurative language to produce profound meaning in the text. Throughout the play, Shakespeare skillfully uses metaphors to explain different emotions and changes that happen to different characters. By utilizing metaphors such as clothing-related metaphoric devices and darkness-related metaphors, Shakespeare is able to express the extreme changes in feelings, reflections, and ideas experienced by each character in the play, while also creating tension with his mirror, or reflection, of the evil nature in the play.