Macbeths Images and Imagery Essay -- Free Essay Writer

Macbeths Imagery William Shakespeare in the tragedy Macbeth very skillfully uses imagery to support other aspects of the drama, specially 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 opposing imagery used to support the opposing notions of purity and black magic Much of the approach and detail was carried over, particularly the clash between phantasmal purity and black magic. Purity was embodied by Duncan, very infirm (in 1974 he was blind), dressed in white and accompanied by church electronic 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 role which imagery plays in Macbeths descent into darkness To take heed 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 intellectual activity, is smotherd in surmise and everywhere the imagery of darkness suggests not only the absence or withdrawal 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 dramatist uses imagery to reinforce the theme This theme is at its clearest where we are most in sympathy with the nemesis. Thus at the end of Macbeth, after the proclamation the meter is free, and of promises to make reparations of Macbeths tyranny Which would be planted newly with... ...es and Noble, 1970. Frye, Northrop. Fools of Time Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy. Toronto, Canada University of Toronto Press, 1967. Kermode, Frank. Macbeth. The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972. Knights, L.C. Macbeth. Shakespeare The Tragedi es. A Collectiion of Critical Essays. Alfred Harbage, ed. Englewwod Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964. Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. http//chemicool.com/Shakespeare/macbeth/full.html, no lin. Warren, Roger. Shakespeare Survey 30. N.p. n.p., 1977. Pp. 177-78. Rpt. in Shakespeare in the Theatre An Anthology of Criticism. Stanley Wells, ed. England Oxford University Press, 2000. Wilson, H. S. On the Design of Shakespearean Tragedy. Toronto, Canada University of Toronto Press, 1957.