Thesis Statement / Essay Topic #4: Thesis Statement/Essay Topic #5: Blood Imagery in Macbeth
Violence and the bloodshed that results are important symbols in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. While the blood that is shed is a tangible reminder of the outcomes of misused power, it also serves as an image that provokes Macbeth to reflect upon his deeds, even if he does not change his behavior. Macbeth becomes obsessed with the blood on his hands. Unfortunately, this reminder of his guilt does not prevent him from continuing violent acts.
This list of important quotations from Macbeth by William Shakespeare will help you work with the essay topics and thesis statements above by allowing you to support your claims. All of the important quotes from Macbeth listed here correspond, at least in some way, to the paper topics above and by themselves can give you great ideas for an essay by offering quotes and explanations about other themes, symbols, imagery, and motifs than those already mentioned and explained. Aside from the thesis statements above, these quotes alone can act as essay questions or study questions as they are all relevant to the text in an important way. All quotes contain page numbers as well. Look at the bottom of the page to identify which edition of Macbeth by William Shakespeare they are referring to.
“Let not light see my black and deep desires….” (I.iv.51)
“Yet I do fear thy nature. It is too full o the milk of human kindness….Thou wouldst be great, Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it.” (I.v.16-20).
“Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe topful of direst cruelty!” (I.v.41-43).
“…We but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague th’ inventor” (I.vii.8-10)
“O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee!” (II.iii.63-64)
“[B]lood will have blood.” (III.v.121)
“I have