Macbeths Images and Imagery Essay -- Free Essay Writer

Macbeths Imagery William Shakespeare in the tragedy Macbeth very skillfully uses mental imagery to support other aspects of the drama, especially the theme. In this search 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 use to support the opposing notions of purity and low-spirited magic Much of the near and detail was carried over, particularly the clash between religious purity and black magic. Purity was embodied by Duncan, very infirm (in 1974 he was blind), spruced up in white and accompanied by church organ music, muckle 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 phantasm To beware 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 morsel 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 only when - 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 This theme is at its clearest where we are most in sympathy with the nemesis. Thus at the cobblers last of Macbeth, after the proclamation the time is free, and of promises to make reparations of Macbeths tyranny Which would be implanted 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. Macbe th. Shakespeare The Tragedies. 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.