Macbeths Images and Imagery :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Macbeths imagery William Shakespeare in the tragedy Macbeth precise skillfully uses imagery to support different aspects of the drama, especially the theme. In this essay let us examine the imagery, including literary critical comment. Roger Warren comments in Shakespeare Survey 30 , regarding Trervor Nunns direction of Macbeth at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1974-75, on debate imagery used to support the opposing notions of purity and black deceit Much of the approach and detail was carried over, in particular the clash between religious purity and black magic. Purity was bodily by Duncan, very infirm (in 1974 he was blind), dressed in color and accompanied by church organ music, set against the black magic of the witches, who even chanted Double, double to the Dies Irae. (283) L.C. Knights in the essay Macbeth explains the supporting agency which imagery plays in Macbeths descent into darkness To listen to the witches, it is suggested, is like eating the insane root, That takes the reason prisoner (I.iii.84-5) for Macbeth, in the moment of temptation, function, or adroit activity, is smotherd in surmise and everywhere the imagery of darkness suggests not only when the absence or withdrawal of light but - light thickens - the front line of something positively oppressive and impeding. (101) In Fools of Time Studies in Shakespearian Tragedy, Northrop Frye shows how the dramatist uses imagery to reinforce the theme This theme is at its clearest where we are or so in sympathy with the nemesis. Thus at the end of Macbeth, after the contract the sequence is free, and of promises to make reparations of Macbeths tyranny Which would be planted newly with the time, there will be a renewal not only of time but of the whole rhythm of nature symbolized by the word measure, which includes twain the music of the spheres and the dispensing of human justice . . .. (94-95) In his book, On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy, H. S. Wilson interprets the ima gery of Macbeth Macbeth is a play in which the poetic atmosphere is very important so important, indeed, that some recent commentators give the impression that this atmosphere, as created by the imagery of the play, is its determining quality. For those who pay most attention to these puissant atmospheric suggestions, this is doubtless true. Mr. Kenneth Muir, in his introduction to the play