Metaphors in Macbeth
Imagery of Light Versus Dark, and Badly Fitting Clothes
Shakespeare's Macbeth is one of his darkest plays, and heavily laden with meaning. Two key metaphors are used throughout the play: light and dark to communicate evil and danger, and clothes which do or do not fit to represent honours and titles gained honestly, or by force and treachery.
Light and Darkness
Shakespeare uses the metaphor of darkness to illustrate Macbeth's slide towards depravity. He cannot face his deeds but needs the dark to hide what he is doing: “Stars, hide your fires,/Let not light see my black and deep desires” (i.iv.50-51)
This line that is one of the first indications of Macbeth's murderous intentions. During the murder of Duncan, Lady Macbeth invokes the night not only to hide from herself and her husband their evil deeds, but also to hide it from heaven, the source of morality (i.v.49-53). Soon Macbeth and his wife are embracing night and its evil (iii.ii.46-55), and becoming inured to the horror of the murders they are committing.
Darkness is also used as a symbol of danger, as when Banquo says that he “must become a borrower of the night for a dark hour or twain” (iii.i.27-8), and the reader knows that Macbeth plans to have him murdered. In fact at the stroke of nightfall, when Banquo comes to the palace holding a fresh torch, both he and the light are struck down by the hired murderers.
Darkness is used to illustrate the unnatural character of Macbeth's crime in killing the king (which was considered at that time to be a crime against God and nature) when Ross remarks that although it should be day, it is still as dark as night (ii.iv.6-10). Night is also used as a metaphor for Macbeth's reign itself, and its impending end when Malcolm comments that “The night is long which never finds the day.” (iv.iii.243)
Finally, Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking, turning her nights into days, and her insistence that she always have a light by her at night (v.i), show how the the darkness she embraced in order to pursue her ambitions has become too much for her. She now wants to flee the darkness and undo her crimes, but she cannot.
Ill-Fitting Clothes
Only once in Macbeth do we see a metaphor of clothes which actually fit. This is when Macbeth tells his wife he has bought “Golden opinions from all sort of people,/Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,/Not cast aside.” (i.vii.32-35)
He is speaking of he honour he won by fighting honestly for his king in battle, but he is persuaded by his wife to reject these in favour of killing to gain a position he doesn't deserve, the position of king.
Clothes are also used as a metaphor for the new titles that the witches prophesy Macbeth will be given. When Ross addresses Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor, just as the witches predicted, he is suspicious and calls the title “borrowed robes” (i.iii.106-7). Banquo reassures his by telling Macbeth that he will become used to these “strange garments” in time (i.iii.144-145), but he is not aware that it is already in Macbeth's mind to kill for further honours which he has not been awarded.
When, towards the end of the play, everyone had turned against Macbeth and battle is looming, Angus sums up how little Macbeth deserves to be king: “Now does he feel his title/Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe/Upon a dwarfish thief.” (V.ii.20-22)
Lady Macbeth
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