Ernesto Lippert Mr. Bacon Essay #7 Winter 2015 How Blood Floods the World There is no single image of blood. Such an image would need to reflect on the various meanings that blood may pose on the human mind: gore, violence, death, pain, life, and much more. Each “bloody” idea may take on a different form or shade of red. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth​
, blood seems to do only one thing as the story progresses ­ spread. To quote a review on the play: “​
Macbeth​
begins and ends with slaughter. There is more and more blood, everyone walks in it; it floods the stage. A production of ​
Macbeth​
not evoking a picture of the world flooded with blood, would inevitably be false” (Kott, ​
Shakespeare, Our Contemporary​
). As blood in ​
Macbeth​
continues to flood the world, one thing grows as well: guilt. As the story continues to progress, more murders are executed under the order of Macbeth, thus putting more and more blood on Macbeth’s hands. Knowing that, it can be concluded that the the image of blood may serve as a warning for Macbeth and possibly even the audience that guilty actions can only lead to the degradation of the evildoer. During the scenes that precede the murder of King Duncan, the image of blood begins to change. The audience gets its first possible warning as Lady Macbeth tries to prepare herself emotionally for the murder: And fill me from the crown to the toe top­full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; Stop up the access and passage to remorse (Act I, scene v, lines 32­34) In imagining the thickening or clotting of her blood in order to feel no guilt, Lady Macbeth is proposing the idea that blood and guilt seem to come hand in hand. This may be because that blood is still in the body, continuing to play its role. While blood is present and able to function in the body, it seems that a human being cannot commit a terrible deed. However, when functioning blood is not present, guilt is gone as well, paving the way to the most brutal crimes. By showing through imagery that what is not blood represents the absence of remorse, this section of Lady Macbeth’s monologue proves that guilt is symbolized by “true” blood. This may serve as a warning to the audience; those watching the play are mortal and have real blood flowing through them. The play illustrates, through this image, that no mortal person can kill someone without guilt following him or her. One of the main ideas depicted by ​
Macbeth​
is the Great Chain of Being, a diagram of sorts that maps out the aspects of existence, such as mankind, nature, and heaven. As would happen in an existential chain, any damage done to one link of the system would likewise disrupt the other links. During the play, blood serves as an ominous image that depicts disruption in the chain. After Duncan’s murder, Macbeth paints one such image for the audience: Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. (II, ii, 61­64) It may be easy to believe that all that occurs in the rest of the world might disguise Macbeth’s guilt, which is represented by Duncan’s blood in the image. However, the Great Chain presents a different idea: Macbeth’s actions will stain the rest of the world. If this isn’t enough of a warning, the Chain also presents a different idea. Macbeth said: It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augurs and understood relations have By magot­pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret'st man of blood. (III, iv, 128­132) This image further depicts disruption in natural order. In this image, however, the disruption of the chain circulates back to the source, damaging the link that was damaged in the first place. If the idea that blood and guilt come hand in hand is true then Macbeth will become the slave of his guilt. This most certainly happens; it is shown by his constant paranoia and hallucinations regarding those whom he has murdered. Macbeth’s bloody deeds seem to have affected the chain in such a way that the consequences circulate across the universe and back to him. Blood takes one more form of guilt in Macbeth: regret. During various scenes, Macbeth and his wife look back at their crimes with images of blood in mind. On recounting the events of Duncan’s murder, Lady Macbeth says: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him” (V, i, 34­35). Duncan’s blood quite clearly symbolizes guilt in this situation. Lady Macbeth believed that she could shrug away the idea of assisting in the murder of Duncan: “What’s done is done” (III, ii, 14). However, as the play progresses, she cannot ignore the extreme amount of guilt and regret that she feels: “What’s done cannot be undone” (V, i, 59­60). The image of Duncan’s endless stream of blood that pours from his body is a clear symbol of the guilt that Lady Macbeth feels. Much like she believed that shrugging off guilt was easy, she believed that washing the blood off was a simple task as well: “A little water clears us of this deed” (II, iii, 80). Sure enough, this belief changes in the same way that her opinion of guilt changes: Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. (V, i, 44­45) With her regret comes despair. Lady Macbeth despairs over the fact that the guilt will stay with her to the death. That serves as yet another warning: Bad deeds lead to regret that can never leave the mind of a criminal. For Lady Macbeth, the only way to cast out the image of blood, or the feeling of guilt, from her mind was to commit suicide. As the play progresses, the image of blood changes as each character’s perception of guilt does. As was seen with Lady Macbeth, guilt was a stain on her mind until she couldn’t take it anymore. For Macbeth, the image of blood representing guilt takes a more mathematical approach: I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er. (III, iv, 162­164) For Macbeth, the guilt has become his life. He has become able to measure his own guilt for the purpose of more murder. By measuring something, which would be considered a sane thing to do when the guilt of murder is not the thing being measured, Macbeth presents his lack of sanity to the audience. In his own way, Macbeth has been made insane by the guilt of murder. Both he and his wife lose their minds, but in different ways. This might be the final warning given by the image of blood in this play: The guilt of murder spawns a personal hell for the murderer. Blood in this play takes several forms, be it gouts, pools, or stains, to represent the specific guilt felt by a character. The image of functioning blood in a human body represents one’s ability to feel guilt. The image of pools and oceans of blood flooding the world represents the passage of guilt through the Great Chain of Being that circulates back to the source. A gout or stain of blood represents the regret that leads to impulsive, suicidal actions. Each form of guilt serves as a warning that directly concerns the audience, as the audience is composed of mortal beings and therefore subject to the first warning concerning functioning blood. From this, it can be assumed that the other warnings apply to the audience ­ or mankind in general ­ and that guilt is the ultimate destroyer of life. Macbeth himself is killed by Macduff, who was the very product of a bloody procedure: “Macduff was from his mother’s womb/Untimely ripped” (V, viii, 19­20). Macduff was born of a c­section, a procedure that produced a great deal of blood. If everything stated about the relationship between blood and guilt is true, then Macbeth, like his wife, fell victim to his own guilt. In summary, the guilt of an evil action circulates around the Great Chain of Being until it reaches the source once again. He or she then experiences a personally unique descent into madness over the guilt, which ultimately leads to his or her death. This is a warning to those who read or watch the story of Macbeth. The cold truth that it presents to the audience is sometimes harder to swallow than guilt itself.