Images of blood and sleep in MacbethMacbeth screams images! Shakespeare uses images of blood and sleep to create an atmosphere of horror during the killing of Duncan, which helps us feel Macbeth's growing madness. Ultimately Lady Macbeth's final scene is enhanced with the use of blood imagery that reflects her guilt. Shakespeare's use of imagery connects the audience's feeling of horror to the play. Macbeth had this potential for himself. He was honored as Thane of Cawdor and who knows what else Duncan had in store for him. Unfortunately he chose not to find out, killing the king. Duncan's murder scene (II, ii) demonstrates the guilt and feeling of blood spreading through the air. When she returns to her chamber, Lady Macbeth notices that she has brought the blood-covered daggers with her. She persuades him to take them back to the scene of the death, but he refuses, saying "I will go no more. I am afraid to think of what I have done; to look again I dare not." Lady Macbeth responds ruthlessly. to her husband: "Weak of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleepers and the dead are nothing but images. It is the child's eye that fears a painted devil. If it bleeds, I will gild the faces of even the grooms, for it must seem theirs guilt." Lady Macbeth tells her husband that he acted like a child and went alone to shed blood on the king's grooms, so it will appear that they did. Lady Macbeth returns from Duncan's room telling Macbeth that his hands are covered in blood just like his. He encourages Macbeth to wash the blood from his hands to remove the evidence from their presence. "My hands are your color... I hear a knock... A little... in the middle of a sheet of paper... come, come, give me your hand! What is done cannot be undone. For to bed, to bed, to bed!" Lady Macbeth is haunted by guilt. The spilled blood troubles his conscience so much that he cannot hide it. Works Cited and Consulted: Campbell, Lily B. "Macbeth: A Study in Fear." Readings on Macbeth. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1999. 126-35.Foakes, R. A. “Images of Death in Macbeth.” In focus on Macbeth. Ed. John Russell Brown. Boston: Routledge, 1987. James IV of Scotland. "Demonology." In minor prose works. Ed. James Craigie. Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society, 1982.Muir, Kenneth. "Introduction." In Macbeth. Ed. Kenneth Muir. New York: Routledge, 1992.Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Kenneth Muir. New York: Routledge, 1992. Truax, E. "Imagery in Macbeth" Comparative Drama 23. 1990:359-76.