Images and Imagery within Shakespeares Macbeth :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

The Reinforcing Imagery at bottom Macbeth In the classic Shakespearean drama Macbeth it seems that every scene is wet with copious imagery - and for a purpose. Its intended purpose is to profligacy a supporting role for more important facets of the play, for example depicted object. In his book, On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy, H. S. Wilson interprets the imagery of Macbeth Macbeth is a play in which the poetical atmosphere is very important so important, indeed, that some recent commentators snap off the impression that this atmosphere, as created by the imagery of the play, is its determining quality. For those who pay about attention to these powerful atmospheric suggestions, this is doubtless true. Mr. Kenneth Muir, in his introduction to the play - which does not, by the way, interpret it simply from this point of view - aptly describes the cumulative effect of the imagery The contrast between light and darkness is sectionalization of a general antithesis bet ween good and evil, devils and angels, evil and grace, hell and nirvana . . . and the disease images of IV, iii and in the last act clearly radiate both the evil which is a disease, and Macbeth himself who is the disease from which his country suffers.(67-68) Roger Warren comments in Shakespeare Survey 30 , regarding Trervor Nunns direction of Macbeth at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1974-75, on opponent imagery used to support the opposing notions of purity and black whoremonger Much of the approach and detail was carried over, particularly the clash between religious purity and black magic. Purity was embodied by Duncan, very imperfect (in 1974 he was blind), dressed in white and accompanied by church organ music, set against the black magic of the witches, who even chanted Double, treble to the Dies Irae. (283) L.C. Knights in the essay Macbeth explains the supporting role which imagery plays in Macbeths note into darkness To listen to the witches, it is suggested, is like ea ting the insane root, That takes the reason prisoner (I.iii.84-5) for Macbeth, in the moment of temptation, function, or intellectual activity, is smotherd in surmise and all over the imagery of darkness suggests not only the absence or detachment of light but - light thickens - the presence of something positively oppressive and impeding. (101) In Fools of Time Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Northrop Frye shows how the playwright uses imagery to reinforce the theme