Use of Symbols by Lady Macbeth

Symbols certainly exist in Shakespeare’s plays. Each symbol adds a certain value to the work and enriches the play considerably. The primary problem with an interpretation of symbols is the belief some people have that symbols almost or always represent a one to one relationship. For the purposes of this paper, the relationship would be represented as milk = nourishment. Infants = innocence, etc. I plan to examine the way in which the characters in The Tragedy of Macbeth use and change the meaning of the following symbols - breastfeeding, infants and milk. By examining the way in which the characters use and alter the aforementioned terms as symbols, (rather than the way these symbols are traditionally interpreted) I will show that standard interpretations of symbols are insufficient and often inaccurate, and the three symbols are used and perverted by Lady Macbeth in order to meet her own needs.

Upon receiving Macbeth’s letter, Lady Macbeth declares: “Glamis thou art and Cawdor, and shalt be / What though art promised” (I.v.14-5). However, Lady Macbeth automatically recognizes and articulates a problem. She utilizes the first milk metaphor in the play: “Yet I do fear thy nature / It is too full of the milk of human kindness” (I.v.15-6). Already, we encounter the symbol of milk in an original and therefore unfamiliar metaphor. Interestingly, Lady Macbeth doesn’t extend or explain the metaphor. The reader is left to interpret what “the milk of human kindness” (I.v.16) is and why Macbeth’s possession of it causes such perturbation in Lady Macbeth. Two interpretations suggest themselves as being problematic for Lady Macbeth. Either Macbeth is too full of a nourishing substance which endears him to be kind t...

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..., idea, or “visiting” (I.v.44) make her feel guilty enough that she won’t complete what she will in the next few lines vow to do. We can readily see then why Macbeth’s appeal to a natural image had no compunction of guilt on Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, by “virtue” of the spirits, was incapable of being affected by appeals to natural archetypes. Lady Macbeth, through her invocation to the spirits, not only blurs but steadfastly rejects the supposedly “correct” interpretations of natural images such as infants, milk and breastfeeding. Lady Macbeth uses, corrupts and inverts these images in order to change Macbeth’s “milk of human kindness” (I.v.16) into a gall that justifies infanticide, regicide and effectively genocide.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1915. Google Books. Web. 3 Sept. 2015.