The Symbolization of Blood

Blood can be symbolized in many ways, but in the scenes of Macbeth, especially Act 1 scenes 1-7, blood symbolizes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's guilt, and soon after they begin to realize that their crimes have stained them in a will not be washed clean. It also symbolizes the guilt that sits on their consciences; one that hounds them to their graves. Blood shows up a lot in this play, as a result of actual wounds are omnipresent, from the bleeding Captain in the beginning to Macbeth's bleeding head at the end.

As he and Lady Macbeth plans to kill King Duncan, he starts to back out because he didn't want to commit a murder, because it would ruin him. Lady Macbeth thinks what he's saying is foolish. Macbeth enters the room in which Duncan was at rest, and murders him in his sleep. Macbeth walks out the room, looks at his wife, the looks at his hands and says, "This is a sorry sight." (2.2 50-51) His wife says to him, "That's such a foolish thing to say!" And when she notices that he had brought the daggers that he had killed Duncan with, she thought that was a foolish thing to do because he had brought out evidences. He is shaken up by his actions and the crime he had committed, all he could do was stand in a stiff position and look at the blood on his hands from the crime scene. He asked himself, "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?" and he answers his own question, "No, this my hand will rather, the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red."(2.2. 59-62)

William Shakespeare stated, "