A symbol is an object, action or event that represents something or that creates a range of association beyond itself. Poets and writers use symbol function to reveal deeper meanings of a play or to emphasize some characteristics of a character. In Shakespeare play Macbeth, Shakespeare uses the symbol blood to remind the characters the consequence of their actions. In Macbeth, Blood is symbolized to represent the guilt that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth felt throughout the play.
In the play “Macbeth” Shakespeare symbolizes blood to show the progression of Lady Macbeths morals and conscious throughout the play. When Lady Macbeth first hears that the king was sleeping in her home, she found the perfect opportunity to achieve her plan to kill him. She calls upon the spirits of murder to “make thick my blood; / Stop up the access and passage to remorse” (1.5.43-44). She feels no remorse and is looking forward to completing this evil deed. She tells Macbeth, “My hands are of your color, but I shame/ To wear a heart so white. She disregards her actions and washes away the blood and the guilt. But when she is introduced to blood the second time in the play, she faint at the sight of it. Shakespeare uses this to illustrate to his audience that all though Lady Macbeth talks about her evil deeds and likes to pretend that she’s “big and bad”, she feels guilty about the death of King Duncan and ultimately knows that it is due to her evil deeds that these sequence of events occur.
The most critical part of Lady Macbeth’s moral progress comes from her attempt to wash away the blood on her hands that was a