Darkness In Macbeth Research Paper

808 Words4 Pages
In human experience darkness is often associated with evil. This darkness forms an emotional concern and expresses the intense interaction between the individuals and his or her conscience. In William Shakespeare’s tragic play, Macbeth, darkness becomes a powerful device that overtakes most of the play, where there is little light to be seen. In Macbeth, Shakespeare uses darkness as a motif to conceal the character's ambitions, and desires and guilty conscience. Throughout the play, Lady Macbeth spends a lot of time trying to hide her evil deeds to prevent others from knowing the actual truth. She uses darkness as a camouflage to conceal her evil ambitions. She did this both figuratively and literally. Lady Macbeth states, “…[so] that my keen…show more content…
49-50, 52) At the end of Lady Macbeth’s monologue, she pleaded for darkness to come with its most gloomy smoke, so when her husband kills Duncan, neither the feelings of regret nor pity would shine through the dark clouds and evilness of their gruesome deed. Most times in Macbeth, darkness and gloominess are linked with evil deeds, such as killing Duncan. Therefore, personifying light and dark emphasizes, the cruelty of killing Duncan, and the truth that Lady Macbeth realizes—that regret and remorse are the natural feelings that come after killing someone. However, she should never feel these natural feelings of regret and remorse since she is supposedly filled “from the crown to the toe top full / of direst cruelty” (1.5. 41-42). The use of personification in the instance of this monologue enhances the meaning in the disorder of darkness and order of light. It paints the picture in the audience’s mind of heaven, as a person, actually peeking over a dark blanket to prevent Lady Macbeth from the sinful deed she and her husband are going to commit. Darkness is more powerful, since light can only “peep through” the dark blanket that covers the sky. Thus, because Lady…show more content…
Ross stated, “Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame, / that darkness does the face of earth entomb / when living light should kiss it?” (2.4. 8-10). This quotation raises the question, is it evil’s strength or the day’s truth that the earth is engulfed by darkness when the light should fill the air? This is a probing question often raised throughout the play, and a question to which many of the characters turn to because it embodies the symbolism of darkness—disorder. Also, both quotations from throughout the play may make the audience think of evil and disorder and darkness as foils. As one begins examining the qualities and whereabouts of evilness and disorder, the understanding of darkness and the evil deeds that happen during the night, grows and becomes easier to explain. The night’s disorder and the light’s order is not the only theme evidenced in Lady Macbeth’s second monologue. While Lady Macbeth is in the middle of pleading for darkness to come with its gloomiest of smokes, the theme of covering to hide the truth her ambition is also
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