Blood, darkness, sleep & visions — how guilt unmakes Macbeth
“Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires.” Macbeth, 1.4
Before the murder, Macbeth begs the night to hide what he wants, which shows he already knows his desires are shameful. Darkness is guilt before the act: a cover he hopes will stop even himself from seeing.
State of mind: Hiding“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” Macbeth, 2.1
A floating dagger leads him to Duncan's chamber. His mind projects the crime before his hand commits it, which shows his conscience fighting his ambition. The visions return as Banquo's ghost in 3.4.
State of mind: UnravellingMacbeth's
Guilt
“Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?” Macbeth, 2.2
Straight after the murder, he believes a whole ocean couldn't clean his hand. Blood becomes guilt that can never be washed away, echoed later in Lady Macbeth's “Out, damned spot!”
State of mind: Tormented“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor / Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.” Macbeth, 2.2
By killing an innocent man in his sleep, Macbeth has killed his own peace. This sets up his later insomnia and paranoia: “full of scorpions is my mind” (3.2).
State of mind: Sleepless & paranoidAct 1
Ambitious, but hiding it
He asks the dark to cover desires he's ashamed of.
Act 2
Horrified & unravelling
Dagger, bloody hands and “sleep no more” all hit in one night.
Act 3
Paranoid & sleepless
“Full of scorpions is my mind”; Banquo's ghost at the banquet.
Act 5
Numb & hollow
“Life's but a walking shadow”: darkness returns as despair.
Each motif is a symptom: guilt starts as something Macbeth hides in the dark, and ends as something he can't wash off, can't sleep through and can't stop seeing.