A Closer Look at the Motifs, Symbols & Themes in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

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Your guide to Macbeth’s numerous motifs and an analysis of each
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Working out the motifs in a piece of literature is one thing, but it’s definitely more challenging when that literature was written around 1606! If you’re struggling to understand the recurring motifs, or patterns (images, sounds, words, and symbols) in William Shakespeare’s famous play Macbeth , you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ve compiled a thorough list of the motifs in Macbeth and how they’re used, with examples directly from the text. From prophecies to weather, war, and sleep, read on to learn more about the motifs, symbols, and major themes in Macbeth .

An Overview of Main Motifs in Macbeth

  • Prophecy - Prophecy guides Macbeth throughout the play, beginning with the three witches’ prediction that he’ll one day be king.
  • Hallucinations - Macbeth and Lady Macbeth repeatedly experience hallucinations and visions as their guilt and paranoia intensify.
  • The supernatural - The witches (supernatural figures) continually influence Macbeth’s actions, and Macbeth himself experiences multiple supernatural events.
  • Violence - Violence and murder occur throughout the story as a result of Macbeth’s ambitions and paranoia.
  • Day and Night - Day and light represent innocence, while night and darkness represent evil in Macbeth .
Section 1 of 4:

Motifs in Macbeth

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  1. Prophecy sparks Macbeth’s ambition and determines his path in the play. The witches’ prophecy (that Macbeth will become the thane of Cawdor and later king) sets his plot to murder the king in motion. That prophecy may also be self-fulfilling; whether Macbeth forces his way to the throne or is led by fate is left ambiguous. Other prophecies, including predictions about Macbeth’s defeat, later come true as well. [1]
    • Example #1: “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis! / All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! / All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” (Act 1, scene 3).
    • Example #2: “Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff! Beware the Thane of Fife!” (Act 4, scene 1).
    • Example #3: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth” (Act 4, scene 1).
    • Example #4: “Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care / Who cafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. / Macbeth shall never be vanquished until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him” (Act 4, scene 1).
  2. 2
    The supernatural Unnatural (or supernatural) forces influence the course of the story. In the play's first scene, three witches meet with Macbeth and predict his rise to power. Supernatural elements, including Macbeth’s hallucinations, Banquo’s ghost, and unnatural events (like storms and animals acting strangely), continue to appear throughout the play. These elements add to Macbeth ’s key themes of conflict and madness. [2]
    • Example: Avaunt! and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! / Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes / Which thou dost glare with!” (Act 3, scene 4)
    • The quote above comes from a scene in which Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost at a banquet and becomes agitated. He gives away his guilt despite Lady Macbeth’s attempts to subdue him.
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  3. Hallucinations continually tie Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to their crimes. Macbeth first hallucinates a dagger before killing Duncan and later sees Banquo’s ghost at a feast. Even Lady Macbeth, who seems more ruthless than her husband, later hallucinates bloodstains on her hands that won’t wash away. As the couple’s body count grows, their hallucinations become a sign of the guilt they both feel. [3]
    • Example: “Out, damned spot; out, I say. / One, two,—why, then / ‘is time to do’t. Hell is murky! —Fie, my lord, fie! A / soldier, and feared? What need we fear who knows it, / When none can call our power to account?” (Act 5, scene 1).
    • The above quote is from Lady Macbeth as her mental state deteriorates, and she hallucinates blood on her hands.
  4. 4
    Violence Macbeth is known for its violent plot. In the opening scene, the audience gets a descriptor of Macbeth and Banquo wading through blood on the battlefield. Descriptions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s bloody hands accompany all of their crimes—and numerous characters meet violent ends, including Duncan, his servants, Banquo, and Lady Macduff. Simply put, violence is one of the play’s most significant motifs, even though most of it happens offstage. [4]
    • Example #1: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” (Act 2, scene 2). After killing Duncan, Macbeth returns to his wife with his hands covered in blood.
    • Example #2: “I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er” (Act 3, scene 4). Later in the play, Macbeth tells his wife that he has killed too many people to return to a path of goodness.
  5. This imagery is used to depict violence and bloodshed in the play. When Macbeth assassinates the King, Lady Macbeth hears a shrieking owl and proclaims it a “fatal bellman,” meaning the owl’s call announces someone’s death. A raven is also used as a symbol of the King’s bad luck and untimely demise. After the assassination, rooks, choughs, and magpies also call out, making birds a repeated sign of ill omen. [5]
    • Example #1: “Hark! Peace! / It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, / Which gives the stern'st good-night” (Act 2, scene 2).
    • Example #2: “The raven himself is hoarse / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan / Under my battlements” (Act 1, scene 5).
    • Example #3: “And prophesying with accents terrible / Of dire combustion and confused events / New hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird / Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth / Was feverous and did shake” (Act 2, scene 3).
  6. 6
    Equivocation Equivocation is the use of ambiguous language to hide the truth. In Macbeth , this occurs right at the beginning of the play when the three witches spin their prophecy, hinting that Macbeth will be king without letting on that Macbeth will commit regicide (or become a hated and feared tyrant). From then on, the motif of equivocation is also present whenever the witches appear in the play.
    • Example: “ Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray's / In deepest consequence" (Act 1, scene 3).
    • In this quote, Banquo warns Macbeth that the three witches may tell small truths to lure him into greater darkness and acts of evil—which is exactly what happens later (and is an example of equivocation).
  7. Day and night respectively depict innocence and evil in Macbeth . Banquo warns Macbeth that the witches could be “instruments of darkness” (evil), and later, when Lady Macbeth contemplates killing Duncan, she wishes for the night to cover the world. When Macbeth finally kills Duncan, it happens at night—as do other murders (like Banquo’s). Therefore, the play connects darkness with evil thoughts and deeds.
    • Example #1: "Stars, hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires” (Act 1, scene 4). Here, Macbeth asks the stars to hide his ambitions and evil schemes.
    • Example #2: “Receive what cheer you may. / The night is long that never finds the day” (Act 4, scene 3). Malcolm says this to Macduff, comparing the “night” to Macbeth’s tyrannical rule.
  8. 8
    Betrayal Treachery repeatedly occurs in the second half of the play. The most significant examples are, of course, Macbeth’s betrayal of King Duncan in Act 2 and Banquo (his friend and fellow warrior) in Act 3. By the second half of the play, Macbeth has Macduff’s family assassinated and becomes a murdering tyrant on his throne, which is how betrayal emerges as a significant motif in Macbeth . [6]
  9. The play begins and ends in a battle. At the beginning of the play in Act 1, Macbeth and Banquo have just defeated a rebellion led by the Thane of Cawdor. At the end of Act 5, Macbeth’s castle is attacked, and he is defeated (and ultimately beheaded) by Macduff. Throughout the play, war and conflict—both internal and external—show how fragile and mentally torn Macbeth and his wife are.
    • Example: “For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name / Disdaining fortune with his brandishing steel / Which smoked with bloody execution, / Like Valor’s minion carved out his passage” (Act 1, scene 2).
    • The quote above comes from the beginning of the play, where a wounded sergeant describes Macbeth’s ferocity on the battlefield.
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Section 2 of 4:

What is a motif?

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  1. Motifs can be anything—words, sounds, images, or symbols brought up multiple times, usually to call attention to something or reinforce the story's themes. Motifs can also help you draw a connection between different scenes or spark your memory of a previous scene. [7]
    • A motif is not the same as a theme. Themes are the central ideas or underlying messages in a story. Motifs can help illustrate or reinforce those ideas, but where a motif is a pattern, a theme is the bigger picture.
    • Macbeth’s motifs support its central themes. For example, Macbeth deals with themes of ambition and guilt, which are supported by motifs in Macbeth and his wife’s actions as they plot to seize Scotland’s crown.
    • Symbols are also different from motifs. A symbol is something (an object, person, situation, or action, for example) that represents something else or has a secondary meaning.
      • Symbols can become part of a motif when repetitively used throughout a story, but on its own, a symbol isn’t the same as a motif.
Section 3 of 4:

Themes in Macbeth

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  1. The central theme of Macbeth is all about ambition—specifically, the ruin caused by unchecked ambition. Macbeth is not inherently evil at the beginning of the play; he wants power and is convinced to kill Duncan despite his better judgment. This leads him into a spiral of guilt, paranoia, and violence that eventually leads to his madness and death. [8]
    • Even Lady Macbeth—who seems more determined and unconcerned with morals than her husband—can’t live with the guilt and repercussions of her actions.
    • She feels Macbeth’s actions on her conscience (since she pushed him to kill Duncan), and that guilt later manifests as hallucinated bloodstains that won’t wash off her hands.
    • Ultimately, both characters’ actions and decisions are driven by ambition. The play demonstrates how ambition can be a slippery slope and how using violence to gain power often leads to more violence.
  2. 2
    Gender and masculinity Macbeth deals heavily with gender and the idea of masculinity being associated with bloodshed and violence—even though female characters manipulate the male protagonist throughout the play. Lady Macbeth muses about gender and even wishes to be “unsexed” (meaning she wishes for the strength to carry out Duncan’s murder). [9]
    • Later, when Macbeth hires men to kill Banquo, he gets them to do it by questioning their masculinity.
    • Throughout the play, masculinity is linked with aggression, which is offset by female characters continually instigating acts of violence (perhaps implying that women are the real source of the problem).
    • Interestingly, critics sometimes refer to Macbeth as Shakespeare’s most misogynistic play.
  3. Finally, guilt becomes a significant theme and driving force behind the plot of Macbeth , as Macbeth becomes increasingly paranoid and violent after murdering Duncan and his friend, Banquo. His guilt over that causes him to hallucinate Banquo’s ghost, while Lady Macbeth’s guilt also drives her to insanity. Both characters are tormented by their guilt, leaving them unable to maintain the power they worked so hard to get. [10]
    • This shows that despite their ambition and ruthlessness, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a conscience and know they’ve done wrong.
  4. When introduced (and whenever referred to), Duncan is called the “king,” while Macbeth is more often called a “tyrant.” This theme continues when Malcolm lies and says he’d be a worse king than Macbeth, claiming to be thirsty for power, violent, and temperamental—all characteristics of Macbeth. In the play, Duncan (and Malcolm) represent the ideal monarch, while Macbeth is the picture of a tyrant unfit to rule.
    • This is also reflected in symbols (like Macbeth being plagued by supernatural events and bad weather).
    • Macbeth is treasonous and disloyal, making him unsuitable as a king. Thus, the plot is resolved when Malcolm brings peace to Scotland as its rightful (and just) king.
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Section 4 of 4:

Symbols in Macbeth

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  1. 1
    Sleep Characters in Macbeth repeatedly express the desire for sleep. In the play, sleep becomes a symbol of innocence and peace. Thus, after Macbeth murders Duncan and hears a voice say, “Macbeth does murder sleep,” his and Lady Macbeth’s sleep begins to suffer. Macbeth has terrible nightmares, and Lady Macbeth begins sleepwalking, which indicates their mutual guilt.
    • Example: “Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep, — the innocent sleep; / Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, / The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, / Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, / Chief nourisher in life's feast” (Act 2, scene 2).
  2. Blood repeatedly becomes a symbol of guilt in Macbeth , with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth remarking about blood (and later hallucinating it) as the weight of their crimes begins to affect them. Just as blood can stain skin or clothing, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel stained with blood due to their plotting—and feel like their sins can’t be washed clean. [11]
    • Example #1: A quote mentioned above—Macbeth’s line “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” (Act 2, scene 2)—also demonstrates Shakespeare’s use of blood as a symbol for guilt.
    • Example #2: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Act 5, scene 1). Lady Macbeth says this while hallucinating blood on her hands and thinking about Duncan’s murder (reflecting the guilt she feels).
  3. 3
    Weather Stormy weather becomes a sign of chaos and turbulence in the play. Whenever the witches meet, their gathering is preceded by bad weather—a sign that they cause trouble and go against the natural order. After winning the battle in Act 1, Macbeth notes how strange it is to have bad weather on a fortunate day, signaling future strife. Throughout the play, weather becomes a recurring symbol of foreshadowing. [12]
    • Example #1: “When shall we three meet again? / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” (Act 1, scene 1). The three witches say this, illustrating the bad weather that occurs when they meet.
    • Example #2: “This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air / Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses” (Act 1, scene 6). King Duncan’s arrival comes with fair weather, symbolizing Duncan’s inner goodness.
    • Example #3: “The night has been unruly. Where we lay, / Our chimneys were blown down… / Some say the Earth / Was feverous and did shake” (Act 2, scene 3). On the night Duncan is murdered, the weather turns foul, symbolic of the chaos his death will bring.
  4. 4
    The dagger Daggers act as a foreshadowing of Macbeth’s demise. He first hallucinates a dagger floating in front of him in Act II and wants to grip its handle, symbolizing his betrayal and the ill-fated path it will ultimately lead him down. Afterward, Macbeth murders King Duncan, his servants, and anyone who might expose his betrayal or take away his crown—making the dagger’s prophecy come true. [13]
    • Example: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: / I have thee not, and yet I see thee still” (Act 2, scene 1).
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      References

      1. ↑ https://libguides.stalbanssc.vic.edu.au/macbeth/motifs
      2. ↑ https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/macbeth/language/analysis
      3. ↑ https://libguides.stalbanssc.vic.edu.au/macbeth/motifs
      4. ↑ https://libguides.stalbanssc.vic.edu.au/macbeth/motifs
      5. ↑ https://shakespeare-navigators.ewu.edu/macbeth/T23.html#54
      6. ↑ https://www.bardology.org/betrayal-in-shakespeare/
      7. ↑ https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-motif
      8. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zgv7hyc/revision/1
      9. ↑ https://books.openedition.org/pur/80895?lang=en
      1. ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zgv7hyc/revision/1
      2. ↑ https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/macbeth-imagery
      3. ↑ https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/33-shakespeare-quotes-about-weather/
      4. ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56970/speech-is-this-a-dagger-which-i-see-before-me

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