Key Quote
“"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?"”
Macbeth · Act 2, Scene 2
Focus: “blood”
Immediately after murdering Duncan, Macbeth recognises the permanence of his guilt — no amount of water can cleanse the stain of regicide.
Technique 1 — HYPERBOLIC CLASSICAL ALLUSION
The reference to Neptune (Roman god of the sea) elevates Macbeth's guilt to mythological (relating to ancient myths) proportions — even the entire ocean cannot cleanse his hands. This hyperbole (extreme exaggeration) reveals that Macbeth understands his crime is not merely legal but metaphysical (beyond the physical world) — he has stained his soul, not just his hands.
The image creates a devastating scale contrast: the vastness of Neptune's ocean versus the smallness of a human hand. Yet the hand's guilt outweighs the ocean, inverting natural proportions and suggesting that moral corruption is more powerful than any natural force of purification.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
Macbeth's regression deepens: he has crossed the irreversible threshold of murder. Yet paradoxically, his awareness of guilt demonstrates that his moral faculty has not been entirely destroyed — he can still recognise the enormity of his act. This creates tragic pathos (sorrowful pity): we witness a man who knows he has damned himself but cannot undo what he has done.
Key Words
Technique 2 — MOTIF OF BLOOD / EXTENDED METAPHOR
Blood functions as an extended metaphor (a metaphor sustained throughout the text) for guilt across the entire play. Here it begins as literal (Duncan's blood on Macbeth's hands) but transforms into symbolic (representing something beyond its literal meaning) — the blood represents moral contamination that cannot be removed. This motif later transfers to Lady Macbeth ('Out, damned spot!'), creating a structural parallel between the couple's psychological disintegration.
The answering line — 'this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red' — extends the image: rather than the sea cleansing Macbeth, Macbeth will stain the sea. Incarnadine (to turn blood-red) is a rare, Latinate word that slows the line, forcing the audience to absorb its horror before the brutal simplicity of 'making the green one red'.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
REGICIDE & DIVINE LAW
Under the Divine Right of Kings, murdering a monarch was not merely a crime against the state but against God. Macbeth's sense that no natural element can cleanse him reflects the Jacobean belief that regicide creates a spiritual stain that only divine forgiveness — which Macbeth never seeks — could remove.
LADY MACBETH'S CONTRASTING RESPONSE
'A little water clears us of this deed' — Lady Macbeth's dismissive (treating something as unworthy of consideration) response creates a dramatic contrast. Her inability to see the moral weight of the murder foreshadows her later psychological collapse, when the blood she dismissed returns to haunt her in the sleepwalking scene.
Key Words
WOW — EXISTENTIAL GUILT (Kierkegaard)
Søren Kierkegaard's concept of existential dread describes the anxiety that accompanies awareness of one's own freedom to choose evil. Macbeth's ocean image captures this perfectly: he has exercised his freedom (choosing to murder) and now confronts the irreversible consequence of that choice. The guilt is not merely emotional but ontological (relating to the nature of being) — it has changed what Macbeth IS, not just what he has done. This aligns with Aristotle's concept of hamartia (tragic flaw/error): Macbeth's crime is not an accident but a choice that fundamentally alters his identity. Shakespeare presents guilt as existential transformation — the murderer is not the same person as the loyal thane; the act has created a new, damned self.
Key Words