Light vs. Darkness in Macbeth

In the first act, the play opens with thunder and lightning, and the description is of a dark night. This sets the play with an eerie feeling, perhaps one of danger. The bad weather is then followed by the arrival witches, who with their “Fair is foul, and foul is fair,” chant get the play off to a foreboding start. We learn that Scotland is in the middle of putting down a civil insurrection and the Norman forces, certainly a dark state of affairs. In the rest of the act, darkness overshadows the light as Macbeth plots

Shakespeare’s use of light and darkness gave the play more dimension and let the characters’ true natures show. It helped to symbolize good vs. evil and the fight for power. And thankfully, in the end, good won out.

Act five is the light conquering the dark. Macbeth is killed, the witches’ prophecies come true, and Malcolm is rightly on the throne again. Even the normally dark characters are using light imagery. The woman watching Lady Macbeth says of her, “Why, it stood by her. She has light by/ her continually. ‘Tis her command.” V, I, 24-25. She was talking about a candle, but it can also be translated into that Lady Macbeth was never that evil and she still had some good left in her. However, she kills herself soon after. Macbeth is unable to grieve properly, but he does say, “All our yesterdays have lighted fools/ The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!” V, V, 25-26. Then, during the battle scene, he must prepare to face the witches’ predictions as Birnam Wood moved to Dunsinane Hill. “I gin to be weary of the sun,” V, V, 55, is simply stating that Macbeth has grown tired of living the way he is with constant guilt for killing Duncan. MacDuff, who was technically not born of woman, kills Macbeth, then they crown Malcolm. This rights the Great Chain of Being again, and makes light the primary image.

Act Two opens in the darkness. In II, I, 6-7, Banquo said, “There is husbandry in heaven/ Their candles are all out.” This the kind of night Macbeth wished for, where his deed may be hidden from everyone, inc

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