The second apparition, which is a bloody child, then appears. The fact that blood is mentioned here is perhaps showing that this apparition is formed by evil forces. He is using different birds to describe the evilness of Macbeth and the poorness and beauty of his family.īlood: In scene 1, Witch I says “Pour in sow’s blood” (line 64) when she is calling out the first apparition for Macbeth. Macduff says “O hell-kite! – All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, at one fell swoop?” (line 217-218), where the hell-kite is Macbeth and the “pretty chickens” are his family. The imagery of bird is also used towards the end of scene 3 when Macduff talks about Macbeth killing his family. Here we can also see the son of Lady Macduff is in fact still a young boy and he still has a mind of a child, thinking in such innocent and pure ways. When his mother says “Poor bird! thou’dst never fear the net, nor lime, The pit-fall, nor the gin?” (line 35-36), he simply says that he will not fear because these traps are not set for poor birds but for rich ones. He says that he will live “as birds do” (line 33) on whatever he gets. Later on in scene 2, birds are used as a metaphor about Lady Macduff’s son being fatherless. Here, birds are described as animals with love and owls are described as evil birds that attack the weak ones. In scene 2, when Lady Macduff talks about Macduff leaving his family alone, she says “for the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.” (line 9-11) She is trying to say that even the birds will fight for their love ones when they are faced against strong enemies like owls, but Macduff just fled without them. One big animal imagery shown throughout the play would be the imagery of birds. However, this is only one of his lies to make sure Macduff is actually loyal to him. Which means Macduff is much more of an evil compared to Macbeth who is mild as a lamb. In scene 3, Macduff also says that, if people sees his evilness, the people in Scotland will see Macbeth as “a lamb” (line 53). For example, in scene two, Lady Macduff calls her son “poor monkey” (line 57) when she talks to him, showing her endearment to her child. The way how the witches add such gross ingredients into the cauldron shows the readers that the witches are bad and it perhaps also show the evilness in their plan that they are soon going to execute on Macbeth.Įven though such evil creatures do not reappear in the next two scenes, some mild and gentle animals are used to describe different characters. Afterwards, the witches started talking about the different parts of animals, such as Fillet of a fenny snake, eye of newt and toe of frog (line 12-14). These three animals are the three witches’ spirits, and using these animals the identity of the witches can be shown. In the beginning of scene 1, the three witches mentioned three different animals, the cat, the hedge-pig and the Harpier. There are a few important types of recurring images in the play Macbeth, and the following images appeared often in act 4.
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