Now that we have finished Act I of Macbeth, and have scanned the text for examples of the motifs I listed before we began reading, write a response in which you use your annotations to help you 1) demonstrate an understanding of the passage in the context of the play and 2) identify and discuss the significance of your motif within the passage. Why is it meaningful, and how is Shakespeare playing with motif symbolically?
Here, again, is a list of motifs, and if you find one on your own, that's even better.
Things that grow (seeds, eggs, etc.)
Blood
Paradoxes
Rings (things that fold back upon themselves).
Hands
Sharp Objects (cutting through coverings).
Darkness
Vision / eyes
Fog / Murk
Time
Garments that don't fit.
Jewels
"Manliness" / Femininity
Gluttony / over-eating
Dichotomies:
Healthy bodies / dismembered bodies
Cleanliness / Dirtiness
Fairness / Foulness
Illusion / Reality.
Health / Sickness.
A motif that stuck out to me was about motherhood. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth often refers to motherhood and nurturing in her plot to kill Duncan. She subverts motherhood in many of her lines into more sinister analogies to motherhood. In one line, she refers to motherhood when Macbeth wants to not kill Duncan. "What beast was't, then,
ReplyDeleteThat made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this."
Overall, in this line, she is telling Macbeth that he broke his promise to help her kill Duncan, and she would hurt a tiny baby if it meant keeping a promise she made to him. The baby example was an example of motherhood subverted, as the image of her hurting a baby is the opposite of what one expects as motherly affection. Lady Macbeth is a very sinister character and the opposite of a gentle and kind woman. Her usage of maternal imagery coupled with violence brought out the contrast with what people usually think of women, and her dark manipulative side.
Being one of the most renowned writers of all time, Shakespeare has skillfully embellished many motifs into the tragedy Macbeth which symbolize deeper meanings. Of these many motifs, his use of time was the one that struck me most. In Act 1 Scene 3, Macbeth says aside, “Come what come may,Time and the hour runs through the roughest day”. Personally, I interpreted this quote as saying no matter what events occur, another day will arrive. What will happen will happen,and chance will decide when (a useful life lesson). With this in mind, Macbeth dismisses the thought of killing Duncan, and because the witches told him he would become king, figures time should just run its course naturally. Though this mentality doesn't really last, it shows how a positive mind can quickly be twisted when one doesn't receive what they expect, and ultimately lead to drastic measures. And in Macbeths case, even murder...
ReplyDeleteIn the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare creates many motifs within the conflicts and scenes throughout the play. These motifs consist of nature, hands, blood, paradoxes and many more. The motif I chose to use is blood. Act 1, scene 7, lines 8 to 10 Macbeth says, “We but teach bloody instructions which being taught return to plague the inventor” In this scene Macbeth is trying to convince himself out of killing the king with his wife, but eventually his wife changes his mind causing him to help commit the murder. This scene is important to this play because it is what starts the main conflict and plot to the entire play. This quote is very meaningful and effective towards the play. This quote spoken by Macbeth means the violence we teach will come back to us eventually. Basically meaning what goes around comes around, and always will eventually. These motifs are successfully used to make Shakespeare's play more exciting and interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteA motif I noticed to appear a lot in the text of Macbeth was blood. Blood is everywhere in this play. The annotation I found significant to this play is “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?”, said by Macbeth after he has killed Duncan. This line was in Act Two, Scene two, lines 58-59. I think this line is meaningful because blood comes to symbolize murder and Macbeth’s guilt. He begins to feel as though his crimes have stained him in a way and cannot be washed clean.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there is a large assortment of motifs in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one that is emphasized and mentioned over and over again is blood. Shakespeare uses blood to link or separate his characters, and that is just what it does. Blood can mean so many different things, anything from symbolizing life, to representing death. This is something that can be brought up when mentioning something such as family relations, but also death and to kill or injure. Blood is what keeps life pumping, but it can also be what makes life come to an end, if something were to go wrong. One motif I found having to do with the mention of blood, was when Lady Macbeth said “make thick my blood, stop up the access and passage to remorse” in Act One Scene Five (Line 43). I noticed the context showed that this had to do with her joining her husband to kill Duncan. From what I interpreted in this context, Lady Macbeth is telling her husband that she wanted to be made of something else, different blood. She wanted this change in this way so that she would be allowed to kill without remorse. This shows the power of blood in the play and how she wanted to use it to manipulate herself. Blood was even more involved shortly after when Macbeth and his wife had killed Duncan. Shakespeare’s motifs throughout Macbeth make the play more compelling to read.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Shakespeare embedded many motifs in the play Macbeth. One of these motifs that comes up throughout act one is the dichotomy between fairness and foulness. Right in the begging of the play Shakespeare brings up the contrast of good and bad. At the end of the opening scene after the witches are discuss when and where to meet Macbeth they all recite together,
ReplyDelete“Paddock calls. Anon!
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Hover through the fog and filthyair”(1.1.11).
This quote also brings about the motif of rings, or things that fold back onto themselves. What appears to be a good thing may very well be a bad thing and what appears to be bad could actually be good. This could be Shakespeare foreshadowing later events in the plot. When the Witches tell Macbeth he will become Thane of Cawdor he initially perceives it to be a good thing, or fair. But we soon find out that Macbeth has to commit a foul act of murder in pursuit of his fair future. So what is fair for one person (Macbeth) is foul for another (Duncan). Macbeth also brings out this dichotomy in act 1 when he first heres the status of the war,
"So foul and fair a day I have not seen" (1.3.38).
Foul is the weather and fair is about the war. This is just another example of two contrasting things existing simultaneously possibly foreshadowing later events.
Throughout Shakespeare's play Macbeth, there has been many motifs in every scene. One example that stood out to me was in Act I Scene V where we see how the concept of masculinity becomes a big part of the play when Lady Macbeth states,
ReplyDelete“The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe topful
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring
ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick
night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my knee knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the
dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
In these lines Lady macbeth waits for King Duncan to arrive. With Macbeth unsure whether to kill Duncan or not, Lady Macbeth recites this speech showing that she will do anything to take the throne from Duncan to help her husband, which is very important in the play. Lady Macbeth wishes she was a man with no conscience so she can kill Duncan herself.
Shakespeare incorperates many motifs into his play Mcbeth. The motif i find to be most apparent is blood. Shakespeare uses blood to symbolize many things, in act 2 scene 2 Shakespeare uses blood to symbolize guilt. Lady Mcbeth talks about blood as the object that defines one's guilt:
ReplyDelete"Go get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood."
Lady Mcbeth wants Mcbeth to frame the guards by smearing the blood from the daggers onto them. After doing this herself she then later says "At the south entry: retire we to our chamber; / A little water clears us of this deed / How easy is it, then" Lady Mcbeth cleans her hands of the blood and in her mind cleans herself of her guiltiness.
Along many motifs in the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, blood was one that struck out to me. Blood is a big part of Macbeth, especially because violence starts from the very beginning and the whole play sort of wraps around the whole idea of murder. One of the first mentions of blood in Act 1 is Scene 5, Line 40 with Lady Macbeth speaking.
ReplyDeleteLady Macbeth says “…Make thick my blood;
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,”
While the two (Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) are plotting to kill Duncan, the man who they feel unjustly won the rights to be king. Lady Macbeth is greedy, and she feels a persistent urge for her to be queen, and thinks it’s unfair that her husband is not king. She sees being royalty as almost a prize, and she (obviously) is willing to do anything to win. To kill Duncan, she knows it will be a messy job and they will need to get a story straight, but she also knows she can’t show any guilt on her face or her queen ship could be taken away. She feels as though it’s necessary to kill Duncan and become the queen, and only then will she be content. She knows the sting of remorse will hit once the job is done, so in this passage she is begging almost a sort of “dark magic” to free her of her feelings of guilt and allow her to kill Duncan without her heart drawing back because of it getting in the way. By thickening her blood, Shakespeare is saying that it would interfere with her conscience and she could do the deed. It’s saying that if her blood was thicker and it clotted basically, then it wouldn’t go to her head and she wouldn’t have feelings.
After reading Act one, there was one motif that I actually understood after the first time reading it. After Lady Macbeth receives a letter from Macbeth in which he describes his confrontation with the witches she comments,
ReplyDelete” Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it“.
Lady Macbeth basically says that even though her husband is ambitious, he doesn't have the mindset to follow his ambition. The Motif used in this annotation compared human kindness to a substance that is delicious but is also necessary to live. Milk is something we've needed from our mothers since birth, so it would make sense to associate it with care . Milk is also associated with love and care later when Lady Macbeth asks evil spirits to take away any milk in her breasts to signify that she has no kindness or mercy within her. Shakespeare also makes it apparent that Lady Macbeth finds herself more wicked than Macbeth, even though she is a women. Women were supposed to produce milk which we've found to be the equivalent of kindness and love . But yet Lady Macbeth criticizes her husband for possessing the very qualities that she is supposed to have. This idea must have been very mind twisting in Shakespeare’s time, which is probably why it was adored and is still read today.